Thorn, Frostflower, and Phyllis Ann Karr
Sep. 10th, 2025 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeRogan: While shelf-checking at the sci-fi library, I found Phyllis Ann Karr's Frostflower books: Frostflower and Thorn, and Frostflower and Windbourne.
I had encountered the characters before, in a short story, "Night of the Short Knives," in the Crossing Press anthology The Women Who Walk Through Fire: Women's Fantasy & Science Fiction vol. 2. In the back of that anthology (which the sci-fi library also has), I found the following author's note:
"I met Thorn and Frostflower at a summer writing workshop led by George R. R. Martin in Dubuque, Iowa. Not that they are based on anyone I ever met in 'real life.' Since long before I knew any theory about the Astral Plane, I have believed that characters are real entities who allow writers to use them. Thus, my fiction is a cooperative effort between the characters and myself; but Frostflower and Thorn answered a call for Sword and Sorcery figures in particular." (p. 273)
That note was written in 1990; her first Frostflower title came out in 1980. She's still writing other books today.
I had encountered the characters before, in a short story, "Night of the Short Knives," in the Crossing Press anthology The Women Who Walk Through Fire: Women's Fantasy & Science Fiction vol. 2. In the back of that anthology (which the sci-fi library also has), I found the following author's note:
"I met Thorn and Frostflower at a summer writing workshop led by George R. R. Martin in Dubuque, Iowa. Not that they are based on anyone I ever met in 'real life.' Since long before I knew any theory about the Astral Plane, I have believed that characters are real entities who allow writers to use them. Thus, my fiction is a cooperative effort between the characters and myself; but Frostflower and Thorn answered a call for Sword and Sorcery figures in particular." (p. 273)
That note was written in 1990; her first Frostflower title came out in 1980. She's still writing other books today.
no subject
Date: 2025-09-21 10:40 pm (UTC)