I just learned of fantasy author Patricia A McKillip’s passing last week.
She was a poet, wordsmith, and major inspiration of mine since 1977.
That was the year I discovered a paperback copy of ‘The Riddlemaster of Hed’ in my junior high school library.
It changed my life.
The high fantasy of Tolkien, but with a more-human and inclusive tone full of wit, beauty, irony, pathos, and great characters.
Of course, as a teen and young adult I tried to write like Pat McKillip. Or course, I failed miserably. On the way to finding my own voice, I learned so much from her works.
I had the privilege of meeting her in-person at a convention in the early 1990s. She was kind, down-to-earth, and seemed a bit flummoxed by all of us earnest fans.
Her ‘Stepping From The Shadows’ galvanized me as a twenty-something writer in the ’80s.
‘The Changeling Sea’ is one of the finest YA fantasies I’ve ever read.
Her ‘Cygnet’ duology never gave us the further love story of Nyx and Brand. But at least, in 1995, the world of ‘Cygnet’ inspired this needlework piece of mine called ‘Air and Water’.
Bye, Pat. Thank you for everything.
