Dateline: 02-27-2003

Katherine Kurtz Announced as 2003 Guest of Honor

CONvergence is pleased to welcome author Katherine Kurtz as a Guest of Honor at CONvergence 2003.

Katherine Kurtz was born in Coral Gables, Florida during a hurricane, and likes to think this was an auspicious introduction to the world. She read honours humanities at the University of Miami, from which she received a B.S. in chemistry, and attended medical school for a year before deciding she would rather write about medicine than practice it. She completed an M.A. in medieval English history at UCLA while writing her first two novels and working as an instructional designer for the Los Angeles Police Academy, and continued her police work for the next ten years. She is also a professionally trained hypnotist, a student of comparative religion, a passable authority on heraldry and chivalry (she belongs to several modern-day chivalric orders, and her husband has just been appointed a state herald for Ireland), a virtuoso at counted cross-stitch (in her copious spare time), and an avowed cat person.

Besides the Deryni, Camber, King Kelson, and Heirs of Saint Camber Trilogies (and a collection of short stories set in the Deryni universe, plus a book on Deryni magic), she has written a juvenile science fiction novel, Legacy of Lehr: a World War II thriller, Lammas Night, dealing with magic worked in the summer of 1940 to keep Hitler from invading England; and an alternate history of the American War for Independence called Two Crowns For America. A new Deryni novel is nearing completion (King Kelson's Bride), with at least two more trilogies projected for the future.

Partnered with Deborah Turner Harris, she has written five books in her adept series of occult detective thrillers set in modern Scotland. Their next team effort, The Temple and the Stone (out in August from Warner), explores the Scottish War of Independence, The Knights Templar, The Stone of Destiny, William Wallace, and Robert the Bruce.

Her first editing foray, Tales of The Knights Templar, appeared from Warner Books in 1995, and contains a solo Adam Sinclair story, in addition to an extensive history of the Templars interwoven in the introduction and connecting narrative. A second volume, On Crusade: More Tales of The Knights Templar, will appear in June, and also contains a solo Adam Sinclair story.

Ms. Kurtz lives in a gothic revival house just south of Dublin with her husband, author and screen-writer Scott MacMillan, their computer programmer son Cameron, four cats, and at least two resident ghosts--the latter of whom seem to approve of the restoration work being done to their house by the MacMillans.

For a listing of Katherine's works, visit http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/authors/Katherine_Kurtz.htm.