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Janny Wurts Author and illustrator with emphasis on fantasy, with the gloves off.

Janny Wurts

Biography Janny Wurts is the author of fourteen novels, a collection of short stories, and the internationally best selling Empire trilogy written in collaboration with Raymond E. Feist. Her recent novel, To Ride Hell's Chasm, is a stand alone fantasy, with the newest in her ongoing Wars of Light and Shadows series, Stormed Fortress, just released from HarperCollins in Great Britain. She has a short story just out in The Solaris Book of New Fantasy, and another forthcoming this year in Catopolis.

Through her combined talents as a writer/illustrator, Janny endeavors to create a seamless interface between words and pictures. The cover images on her books, both in the US and in most translations abroad, are her own paintings depicting her vision of characters and setting.

Her research includes direct outdoor experience, lending her sailing, riding and wilderness scenes a somewhat hair raising facet of realism. A self–taught painter, she draws directly from imagination, creating scenes in a representational style that evolve from pencil drawings to oil paint.

Says Janny of her work, "I chose to frame my storytelling against a backdrop of fantasy because I could handle even the most sensitive issues with the gloves off, and no holds barred.”

Beyond writing, Janny's award winning paintings have been showcased in exhibitions of imaginative artwork, among them a commemorative exhibition for NASA's 25th Anniversary; the Art of the Cosmos at Hayden Planetarium in New York; and two exhibits of fantasy art at the Canton Art Museum. The Delaware Art Museum also has one of her paintings from its collection on display in the current illustration exhibit.

She lives in Florida in a comfortable state of creative havoc with a husband, four cats, three horses, and a back yard in which anything can happen at any time, from unexpected wildlife visits, to bagpipes, to black powder explosions. Conversation is welcomed, she doesn’t generally steal firstborns or bite.

Upcoming Works

  • Book Nine, War of Light and Shadow series

    Short story "Cat Call 911" to be included in Catapolis, edited by Janet Deaver-Pack and Martin Greenburg (DAW Books TBA 08)

Relationship

  • Married to artist Don Maitz

Causes I Support

  • FINCA Heifer International American Indian College Fund Trust for Public Land Doctors Without Borders Environmental Defense

Agents

  • Jonathan Matson
    Harold Matson Agency

Publishers

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