Phyllis Ann Karr, born July 25, 1944, is an American author of fantasy, romances, mysteries, and non-fiction. She is best known for her "Frostflower & Thorn" series and Matter of Britain works.
Karr was born Phyllis Ann Karmilowicz in Oakland, California. Karmilowicz was later shortened to Karr, under which name she married and writes. She married, June 2, 1990, in Washburn County, Wisconsin, Clifton Alfred Hoyt, who died November 4, 2005 in Solon Springs, Wisconsin. She lives in Solon Springs.
Karr's primary literary interests, reflected in both her fiction and non-fiction, include Arthurian legend, William Shakespeare, the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and L. Frank Baum's Oz books. Her early works began appearing in the 1970s, and included literary articles, poetry, and fantasy and mystery short stories. Her short works have appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, The Gilbert & Sullivan Journal, The Savoyard, Library Review, Oziana, The Baum Bugle, and other journals, as well as various anthologies. Karr's first novels were romances, including Lady Susan, an expansion of the work of the same name by Jane Austen. Some of her romance novels have also been published in Italian translation. These were followed by a number of fantasy novels, notably the "Frostflower" books and the Arthurian whodunnit The Idylls of the Queen. She published no novels between 1986 and 2001, concentrating instead on shorter works. Some of her early fantasy novels have since been reissued by Wildside Press. Her major nonfiction work is The King Arthur Companion (1983), later expanded as The Arthurian Companion (1997), the first edition of which the author considered unsatisfactory owing to omissions and errors committed by the publisher; a corrected edition appeared in 2001.
