Jane Lindskold

Jane M. Lindskold (born September 15, 1962) is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels.

Early life

Jane M. Lindskold was born on 15 September 1962, and grew up in Washington, D.C., and the Chesapeake Bay area. Jane is the first of four siblings, the others being Ann M. Lindskold Nalley, Graydon M. Lindskold, and Susan M. Lindskold Speer. Lindskold's father, John E. Lindskold, was head of the Land and Natural Resources Division, Western Division of the United States Justice Department. Her mother, Barbara DiSalle Lindskold, daughter of Ohio Governor Michael DiSalle, also was an attorney. Jane received a Ph.D. in English from Fordham, concentrating on Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern British Literature.

Literary work

Mentored by her friend Roger Zelazny, she started publishing stories in 1992 and published her first novel, Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls, in December, 1994. In her Athanor series, she writes about the creatures of legend — shape-shifters, satyrs, merfolk, and unicorns — who have sworn to keep their existence hidden from a human race prone to kill what it does not understand. In her Firekeeper Saga, she writes about a woman who discovers that politics among the wolves she was raised by and politics among human royalty are not so different. Lindskold was later in a relationship with Zelazny; at the time of his death, they were living together. She later completed two novels on the basis of notes and partial drafts left by him, Donnerjack and Lord Demon.

Critical reception

Charles de Lint, reviewing Changer, praised "Lindskold's ability to tell a fast-paced, contemporary story that still carries the weight and style of old mythological story cycles." Terri Windling called Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls "a complex, utterly original work of speculative fiction."

Lindskold lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband, archaeologist Jim Moore.