P.C. Hodgell

P.C. Hodgell Introduction

Portrait of P.C. Hodgell

P. C. Hodgell

 


GREETINGS AND WELCOME

If you're looking for the author of God Stalk, Dark of the Moon, Dark of the Gods (which combines the first two novels, as does the English Chronicles of the Kencyrath), Seeker's Mask, To Ride a Rathorn, and Bound in Blood, you've found her.

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You've also found the main web-site featuring the artwork of Robert O. Hodgell and Lois P. Hodgell, my parents.

My primary purpose is to let readers know what's going on in my fantasy world and, hopefully, to get some feedback from them. It can be lonely out here, and the silence sometimes deafening.

I'm also an artist, mostly in fiber and glass. See examples under the appropriate headings. Commissions are welcome.

 


ARTIST STATEMENT

I don't want to go in for the usual biographical material. You can find that at one of my other web-sites sponsored by readers (see Links). To give you the relevant basics, I grew up with an active fantasy life, but didn't start writing about it until between college and graduate school. Since then, until two years ago, writing and academia vied for my attention, the latter largely because I had to earn a living somehow.

My first two novels took roughly two years each to write and were published, to my surprise, by a young adult press (Atheneum). Then perforce I took time off to write a 400 page doctoral dissertation (Ivanhoe: The Nonsense of Ancient Days) which half killed me, only to find when I finished that my publisher was no longer interested in me and neither was academia. I'd been too long out of both, you see. I finally picked up an academic staff job, but it took roughly ten years, during which I was writing Seeker's Mask, to find a new publisher ; a small press named Hypatia.

Then Hypatia went out of business.

Several years after that, Meisha Merlin reissued the earlier books, an expanded Blood and Ivory short story collection, and the latest novel, To Ride a Rathorn.

Then, suddenly, Meisha Merlin went bankrupt, owing me five years back pay in advances and royalties.

Since then Baen has picked up the series in e-edition and now in print.  I'm currently working on the eighth book, working title The Gates of Home.

I tell you the first part of this to explain why it's taken thirty-odd years to document some three years in my heroine Jame's life. Yes, I'm slow, but I'm also battered. And stubborn. Not unlike Jame. My favorite comment from a fan, when she read my name tag at a convention, is "I thought you were English, male, and dead." No, no, and no. Now that I've retired from teaching, hopefully both Jame and I can finish our stories in a timely fashion, i.e. before either one of us drops dead.

Also please note: this site is still very much under construction. I'll add material as quickly as I can.  Also note, my parents' artwork is for sale (ask for prices on specific pieces) and I take commissions in fiber and stained glass.  Support your local author.

 



 
Music: Satie, Erik. "3 Gymnopedies." Aldo Ciccolini. Piano Works. CD. EMI Classics, 1991.