Phyllis Ann Karr, born July 25, 1944, is an American author of fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

, romances

Romance novel

The romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Through the late...

, mysteries, and non-fiction

Non-fiction

Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

. She is best known for her "Frostflower & Thorn" series and Matter of Britain works.

Life and family

Karr was born Phyllis Ann Karmilowicz in Oakland, California

Oakland, California

Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

. Karmilowicz was later shortened to Karr, under which name she married and writes. She married, June 2, 1990, in Washburn County, Wisconsin

Washburn County, Wisconsin

Washburn County is a county in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of 2000, the population was 16,036. Its county seat is Shell Lake.-Geography:According to the U.S...

, Clifton Alfred Hoyt, who died November 4, 2005 in Solon Springs, Wisconsin

Solon Springs, Wisconsin

Solon Springs is a village in Douglas County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 576 at the 2000 census. The village is located within the Town of Solon Springs.-Transportation:U.S. Highway 53 serves as a main arterial route in the community...

. She lives in Drummond Wisconsin.

Career

Karr's primary literary interests, reflected in both her fiction and non-fiction, include Arthurian legend, William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

, the Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan

Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...

 operetta

Operetta

Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...

s, and L. Frank Baum

L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...

's Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...

 books. Her early works, including literary articles, poetry, and fantasy and mystery short stories, began appearing in the 1970s. Her short works have been published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine is an American monthly digest size fiction magazine specializing in crime fiction, particularly detective fiction...

, Weird Tales

Weird Tales

Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....

, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine

Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine was a quarterly fantasy magazine founded and initially edited by fantasy and science fiction author Marion Zimmer Bradley. Fifty issues appeared from summer 1988 through December 2000. It was published by MZB Enterprises from 1988-1989, Marion Zimmer Bradley...

, The Gilbert & Sullivan Journal, The Savoyard, Library Review

Library Review

-Library Review :Library Review is an academic journal which was established in 1927. This journal focuses on social sciences, specific to library and information sciences...

, Oziana, The Baum Bugle

The Baum Bugle

The Baum Bugle: A Journal of Oz is the official journal of The International Wizard of Oz Club. The journal was founded in 1957, with its first issue released in June of that year . It publishes three times per year, with issues dated Spring, Autumn, and Winter; Issue No. 1 of Volume 50 appeared in...

, and other journals, as well as various anthologies.

Karr's first novels were romances, including Lady Susan, an expansion of the work of the same name

Lady Susan

Lady Susan is a short epistolary novel by Jane Austen, possibly written in 1794 but not published until 1871.-Synopsis:This epistolary novel, an early complete work that the author never submitted for publication, describes the schemes of the main character—the widowed Lady Susan—as she seeks a new...

 by Jane Austen

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

. These were followed by a number of fantasy novels, notably the "Frostflower" books and the Arthurian whodunnit The Idylls of the Queen. Between 1986 and 2001 she published no novels, concentrating instead on shorter works. Some of her early fantasy novels have since been reissued by Wildside Press

Wildside Press

Wildside Press is an independent publishing company located in Maryland, USA. It was founded in 1989 by John Gregory and Kim Betancourt. While the press was originally conceived as a publisher of speculative fiction in both trade and limited editions, it has broadened out somewhat since then, both...

. Some of her romance novels have also appeared in Italian translation.

Her major nonfiction work is The King Arthur Companion (1983), later expanded as The Arthurian Companion (1997), the first edition of which the author considered unsatisfactory owing to omissions and errors committed by the publisher; a corrected edition appeared in 2001.

Other novels

• The Idylls of the Queen (1982)
• Wildraith's Last Battle (1982)
• At Amberleaf Fair (1986)
• The Follies of Sir Harald (2001)
• The Gallows in the Greenwood (2002)

Romance novels

• My Lady Quixote (1980)
• Lady Susan (1980)
• Meadowsong (1981)
• Perola (1982)
• The Elopement (1982)

Nonfiction

• The King Arthur Companion (1983; expanded as The Arthurian Companion, 1997; 2nd ed. 2001)

Fantasies

• "Toyman's Trade" (1974)
• "St. Columba and the Monster of Loch Ness" (1975)
• "The Lost Sawhorse of Oz" (1976)
• "G Above High C[cubed]" (1976)
• "So Come, Amaryllis" (1976)
• "The Wolves of Severtatis" (1976)
• "Planting a Child" (1977)
• "The Steptoe Husbands" (1978)
• "The Rebakle" (1978)
• "I Will Not Disturb the Harvest" (1979)
• "Granion Soup" (1980)
• "The Transalt Amulet" (1981)
• "The Robber Girl" (1982)
• "The Toe" (1982)
• "Tales Told to a Toymaker" (1983)
• "The Toymaker and the Musicrafter" (1983)
• "Toyman's Name" (1983)
• "New Mythi for Horror Tales" (1984)
• "The Garnet and the Glory" (1984)
• "A Night at Two Inns" (1985)
• "Two days out of Sludgepocket" (1985)
• "A Computer Wizard in Oz" (1986)
• "The Computer Wizard Makes a Comeback" (1988).
• "Two Bits of Embroidery" (1988)
• "Slime's Men" (1988)
• "Murder with an Artist's Rag" (1988)
• "A Glassmaker's Courage" (1989) (with M. Coleman Easton)
• "The Dragon, The Unicorn and the Teddy Bear" (1989)
• "The Lady of Belec" (1989)
• "Murder with an Artist's Rag" (1989)
• "The Eldritch Horror of Oz" (1989)
• "The Truth about the Lady of the Lake" (1990)
• "Night of the Short Knives" (1990)
• "The Robber Girl, The Sea Witch, and the Little Mermaid's Voice" (1991)
• "Who Mourns for Silverstairs?" (1991)
• "A Cold Stake" (1991)
• "The Coming of the Light" (1992)
• "Maybe the Miffin" (1993)
• "The Hollyhock Dolls" (1993)
• "Mad Evren's Dreams" (1994)
• "Merlin's Dark Mirror" (1995)
• "Babbitt's Daughter" (1995)
• "Morded and the Dragon" (1995)
• "The Bigot and the Baritone" (1996)
• "Galahad's Lady" (1996)
• "Clarissant" (1997)
• "Sir Gawain in Clarissant" (1997)*"
• "The Realm of the Dead and the Dreaming" (2000)
• "When the Wolf Pirates Came to the City of Wonders" (2000)
• "Squire Kay in Love" (2002)
• "The Lark in Contention" (2002)
• "The Mage on Love" (2002)
• "Three Lives" (2002)
• "Time is Golden" (2002)
• "The Robber Girl, the Strangers, and Ole Lukoie" (2003)

Mysteries

• "For Cake with Clotted Cream" (1974)
• "Blood Money" (1975)
• "Old Horny's Hounds" (1975)
• "The Ass's Head" (1996)
• "Love's Labour's Discover'd" (1998)

Translations

• "The Coffeepot" (Théophile Gautier
  Théophile Gautier
  Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
  
  ) (1985)
• "The Plague-Man" (Jean Richepin
  Jean Richepin
  Jean Richepin , French poet, novelist and dramatist, the son of an army doctor, was born at Médéa, French Algeria.At school and at the École Normale Supérieure he gave evidence of brilliant, if somewhat undisciplined, powers, for which he found physical vent in different directions—first as a...
  
  ) (1988)
• "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (Henri Blaze from Goethe's ballade) (1997)

Articles

• "Ruddy George - A Parody" (1974)
• "The Odd Couple: W. Shakespeare and J. F. Ducis" (1975)
• "Who Was the Traitor of Troy?" (1976)
• "The Two Endings of Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross'" (1977)
• "The Curious Case of King Kaliko" (1978)
• "Ruthven's Defection Re_Examined" (1982)
• "The Canonization of Merry-Go-Round" (1983)
• "Jessica Amanda Salmonson" (1984)
• "The Last Temptation of Arthur" (1989)
• "Kay and Morgan and Me." (1989)
• "The Vampire as Shaman" (1990)
• "Recipes: Bran Cookies & Bran 'Bumps'" (1991)
• "Karmilowicz Coffee Cake" (recipe) (1998)
• "St. Ann Parish History" (2002)

Poetry

• "Rondel for Rulers" (1975)
• "Perran Sands" (1976)
• "An Idyll of the Grail" (1996)
• "The Yin and Yang of It" (1998)
• "The Last Idle of the King" (2000)

External links

• "Phyllis Ann Karr, Author" - author's website
• Phyllis Ann Karr at Fantastic Fiction