Mercedes Lackey - Author

CONvergence is pleased to welcome author Mercedes Lackey as a Guest of Honor at CONvergence 2005.

Mercedes Lackey (also known as Misty) is a prolific author of fantasy novels. She is best known for her epic Valdemar series, which form a complex tapestry of interaction between diverse human and non-human cultures.

Mercedes Lackey describes herself this way: "I'm a storyteller; that's what I see as `my job.' My stories come out of my characters; how those characters would react to the given situation. Maybe that's why I get letters from readers as young as thirteen and as old as sixty-odd."

Music plays an important role in Mercedes’ works, as she explains: "I frequently will write a lyric when I am attempting to get to the heart of a crucial scene; I find that when I have done so, the scene has become absolutely clear in my mind, and I can write exactly what I wanted to say. Another reason is because of the kind of novels I am writing: that is, fantasy, set in an other-world, semi-medieval atmosphere. Music is very important to medieval peoples; bards are the chief newsbringers. When I write the ‘folk music’ of these peoples, I am enriching my whole world, whether I actually use the song in the text or not."

Her writing contains a prominent theme of tolerance throughout. "I suppose that in everything I write, I try to expound the creed I gave my character Diana Tregarde in Burning Water: 'There's no such thing as 'one, true way;' the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it.'"