Crispin started writing in 1978, and her career began in 1983. As a writer of "
tie-in" novels she was known for developing the backgrounds and emotional lives of on-screen characters. Two of her
Star Trek novels—''
Yesterday's Son and Time for Yesterday''—were direct sequels to the third-season episode "
All Our Yesterdays", and detail Spock and Zarabeth's son. ''Yesterday's Son
was the first non-novelization Star Trek novel to appear on the New York Times
Best Seller list. Her later Star Trek
works included the novel Sarek, which takes place after Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Her best-known Star Wars work, The Han Solo Trilogy, chronicles the life of Han Solo prior to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope''. When an editor working for
Disney was seeking an author to write a novel dealing with the backstory of
Captain Jack Sparrow, a major character from the
Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, they contacted Crispin's agent and contracted her to write the book after reading
The Han Solo Trilogy, which focused on Han Solo's backstory. According to Crispin herself, it took her three years to write and she did a lot of research on the historical period and the nautical stuff. She was also given the script for ''
At World's End before the film released, but her book was finished before the script for On Stranger Tides was written. The instructions for A. C. Crispin in writing Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom were to "stick to historical fact, unless it conflicts with established Pirates of the Caribbean continuity." Crispin made a faithful effort to do this, having done plenty of research, with Under the Black Flag
by David Cordingly being one of the four pirate-related books she found herself using the most consistently. When releasing the fifth excerpt of her book, Crispin spoke of how she was privileged to write the scene where Han first beheld—and fell for—the Millennium Falcon in The Han Solo Trilogy
. She assured fans it was every bit as thrilling to write the scene with Jack Sparrow and the merchant ship Wicked Wench. The Price of Freedom'' was published on May 17, 2011. She also created her own StarBridge series of novels, aimed primarily at young readers. With Victoria Strauss, she founded Writer Beware, a "watchdog" group that is part of SFWA that warns aspiring writers about the dangers of scam agents, editors, and publishers. On April 19, 2013, Crispin was named the 2013 Grandmaster by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW). ==Personal life==