Katharine Kerr: Sci Fi Fantasy Novelist

Katharine Kerr was born in 1944 in Cleveland, Ohio. Her birth name was Nancy Brahtin. Kerr is an science fiction and fantasy novelist who is best known for her series of Celtic-influenced high fantasy novels set in the fictional land of Deverry.

Kerr describes her family feeling more like "British-in-Exile" than American. Having been taught to read only British books, Kerr has difficulty spelling properly using either British or American systems. When she was still young, her family moved to Santa Barbara, California. She was in shock to find there was no Major League baseball teams. She learned that in California beaches were more important than reading books.

In 1962, she moved to San Francisco. There she spent time studying at Stanford University, but she dropped out in the mid sixties. She left school to join several revolutions. She then held several low-paying jobs including working at the Post Office.

She read extensively in the fields of classical, archaeology and literature, Medieval and Dark Ages history and modern fiction. Kerr can muddle along in Latin and many modern languages including the speech of Rock n Roll musicians. She used to live with several cats and loves to watch baseball.

She met up with Howard Kerr, a friend from secondary school, in 1973. They both shared a love of cats, baseball, and books. They were married the same year.

Six years later, a friend gave Kerr her first fantasy role playing game. Kerr refers to this as the "fatal gift". Because of this gift, she was led to a fascination with the gaming and fantasy field. This then led her to write articles for gaming magazines. She became the contributing editor to Dragon Magazine and contributed to gaming modules for both TSR Inc., and Chaosium, Inc. She now solely dedicates herself to her fiction and is known for her novels of Deverry.

Books by Katharine Kerr:

Daggerspell

Darkspell

The Bristling Wood

The Dragon Reverent

The Dragonspell

A Time of Exile

A Time of Omens

Days of Blood and Fire

Days of Air and Darkness

A Time of Justice

The Red Wayvern

The Black Raven

The Fire Dragon

The Gold Falcon

The Spirit Stone

The Shadow Isle

The Silver Mage

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Kerr

http://www.deverry.com/bio.html