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Kathryn Anne Ptacek was born on 12 September 1952 in Omaha, Nebraska, USA, but was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received her B. A. in Journalism, with a minor in history, from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, where she was graduated with distinction in 1974. While attending the university, she was a student of award-winning mystery writer Tony Hillerman and well-known YA writer Lois Duncan. Afterward, she worked briefly for a political party best left unnamed, was a telephone solicitor for the New Mexico Assn. of Retarded People, and spent two years as an advertising lay-out artist for a regional grocery warehouse co-op, and then worked for the University of New Mexico first as a secretary in the Dept. of Speech and Hearing, then for the University's Computing Center as their only technical writer and editor.
After the sale of her first novel, an historical romance, in July 1979, she quit to become a full-time novelist. As Les Simons, Kathryn Atwood, Anne Mayfield, Kathleen Maxwell, Kathryn Ptacek, and Kathryn Grant, she has written an historical fantasy series, numerous historical romances, and five horror novels. Her dark fantasy have won the Silver Medal and Gold Medal awards given by the West Coast Review of Books. She has also edited three anthologies, the critically acclaimed Women of Darkness and its companion Women of Darkness II (both Tor), and Women of the West (Doubleday). Editions of her books have appeared in England, Japan, Norway, Sweden and Germany. Her short stories have appeared in Greystone Bay, Doom City (Greystone Bay II), Fantasy Tales, the Post Mortem anthology, Pulphouse 5, The Horror Show, Freak Show (HWA anthology), A Confederacy of Horrors, Into The Fog, The Ultimate Witch, and Phobias. She is a member of Horror Writers Association, Mystery Writers of America, the International Women Writers Guild, and the Police Writers Club. She also prepares a market report for Hellnotes, is the editor of the Horror Writers Association's monthly newsletter, and publishes a market newsletter, The Gila Queen's Guide to Markets, which goes to writers and artists around the world.
On 1982, she married to dark fantasy novelist Charles L. Grant, who died in 2006. She shares a 116-year-old Victorian clapboard house with five cats in Newton, New Jersey. Her hobbies include gardening, jewelry making, and various needlework. She also has a large collection of gila monster memorabilia, and collects unusual teapots and cat whiskers.
India in 1857 and Savannah, Georgia, in 1889 are linked by two strange coincidences--a pale, beautiful, and sensually magnetic woman named August is present, and young children fall prey to a mysterious fever...
Two ravishing beauties--the Greek sisters Athina and August Kristonosos. Three giants of the Romantic Movement--John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and George Gordon, Lord Byron. Three great poets, all of whom die young. All three know the Kristonosos ...
When Apache shaman Chato Del-Kline investigates a series of brutal murders whose only link is a black crow's feather left at the scene of each crime, he stumbles upon preparations for a powerful Ghost Dance, designed to summon nuclear armageddon...
Why is Jessie so frightened…? Showers terrify her. They make her scream in horror and no one knows why. The family doctor fills her with dread. She cries out to him in a language she’s never heard before… Memories haunt her dreams. Imposs...
""Death need not be ugly. Why not make that last one-way journey a pleasant one? After all, the French refer to orgasm as "the little death (le petite mort)." French critic Roland Barthes also used the term to describe the emotional release a reader ...
These nineteen intriguing fantasy and horror tales challenge the very heart and soul of the reader. From unhappy husbands and beleaguered wives, to those individuals living completely on their own, these hard-edged and gritty psychological gems prese...
Long ago and far away, there was a wondrous land...A land of everlasting spring where willow trees grew as blades of grass. A land where all the dragons of the world dwelt in peace, filling the fragrant air with their silver song.Then one day the wi...
Long ago and far away, there was a wondrous land...A land of everlasting spring where willow trees grew as blades of grass. A land where all the dragons of the world dwelt in peace, filling the fragrant air with their silver song.Then one day the wi...
Long ago, when it was always spring.… A road ran between what would someday be Europe and the Land of Ten Thousand Willows, where sleepy dragons stretched in the sun. It was in this age that two were bound together, first by fate, then by love: t...
LONG AGO, WHEN A SILENT SNOWFALL BLANKETED THE EASTERN LAND …The brave young Emperor Ty-Sun traveled the Black Jade Road with Blessing Dunncaster, the bewitched and beautiful Englishwoman who would be his empress. Together they made their way back...