"I was born on December 13, 1954, to a poor but honest pack of wolves. No, no, no, that's not right--though I do sometimes wonder what my dad may have been in prior lives, especially when he gives his wolfish grin (the one with all the teeth). We weren't what you'd call rich, except in terms of family. Both my parents had itchy feet, so we moved a lot in the 1960's and early 1970's, spending six years in the San Francisco Bay Area and the rest in Fayette County, in western Pennsylvania.

My dad started me writing when I was in sixth grade. The worse my parents' marriage got, the more I wrote, so that by the time they got divorced (I was in seventh grade and had just discovered fantasy and science fiction), I was hooked on writing. I tried to write the same kind of stories I read (except with teenaged girl heroes, like me--not too many of those around in the 1960's). Writing was as natural as breathing, right up until tenth grade. Then I stopped being able to write my own fiction. I could write--papers, satires, poetry, comedy--but my feeling was that if I couldn't do my own stories, I wasn't really writing. I put aside being a writer when I grew up, filled the gap with articles and satires for the school paper, and decided to become a clinical psychologist. I went to the University of Pennsylvania on full scholarship, studying psychology and working part-time and in the summers, usually in jobs that would help me to a career in social work with teenagers.

Then, in the summer before my junior year, I wrote my first completely original short story since tenth grade. "Demon Chariot" was five whole pages; each word was a drop of blood--but I finished it. A year later, I sold my first short story. As a result of this, I took a fiction writing course in my senior year. My teacher was a very fine writer named David Bradley, and when he suggested that I tackle a novel, I listened. (Well, I laughed in his face, and then I listened.) He wanted to see a novel based on my own experiences; I did try to write it, but ground to a halt in five pages. I was terrified that my recovered writing would evaporate again, and decided that it didn't matter what my first novel was about, as long as it was a finished first novel. I cast around for a subject, and remembered the ideas which had resulted in all those stories when I was younger--and those teenaged girl heroes. Thus I began my first sword and sorcery novel.

I never really finished my psychology degree. Instead I drifted through rent-paying jobs, until my father and stepmother invited me to live with them in Idaho. There I worked as a housemother in a group home for teenaged girls. At that time I was sending out a 732-page novel, THE SONG OF THE LIONESS. My girls would have liked to read it, but the director of the home felt that parts of it were inappropriate (it was a very strict home). Instead I told the girls Alanna's story, edited for teenagers. In the fullness of time, I moved to Manhattan, to get my publishing career started. When my agent recommended that I turn SONG into four books for teenagers, I realized that, in a sense, I had already done so. When Jean Karl at Atheneum books saw the manuscript, she agreed to take me on--after rewrites, of course.

While I was rewriting and expanding Alanna's story, I worked as a secretary, and helped to start a radio comedy and production company. I wrote, acted and directed there; I also met an outgoing, talented, funny actor/videomaker named Tim Liebe. He lied when he said he didn't want to get married. I didn't realize he lied until it was too late, and everyone who knew me was sitting in the audience, waiting to say if Tammy would really say "I do." I did. I got my revenge: I suggested that he write down some of his notes on sound production for home videos, and sell the result as an article. It launched his writing career, making him a slave to deadlines as a regular contributor to both paper (chiefly Sound & Vision, formerly Video Magazine) and online magazines (E/TOWN, HYPERZINE, THE GIST). He has even done time as a magazine editor, and now understands why I will have screaming fits when I encounter the improper use of a semi-colon. I try not to gloat about his troubles too often, or he drafts me to help with his work. His most recent career addition is Webpage design, for which he also gets paid: my page, and Raquel Starace's Anthony Perkins fan page are just two of his productions.

We live in Manhattan with our cats and budgies, plus a floating population of rescued wildlife (the one I miss most is the baby crow, who got a home with a flock being raised by wildlife rehabilitators; the one I miss least is the chicken, who got a better and more distant life on a Connecticut farm). It's a hectic life, between his deadlines and mine, but it has its rewards: books, for one, and getting letters which tell me my books made a difference for someone. If we could have a bit more space, and perhaps a hedgehog, and some finches, maybe a dog. . . Will-we-or-nil-we, I believe we're going to have more budgies soon. Telling Zorak and the Junior Bird-man that celibacy is a good thing does not appear to work."

You can email Tamora atHedgewitch@aol.com or at SFF.Net