Jo Clayton (1939-1998) was a fantasy author who shared many fans with Marion Zimmer Bradley. Clayton had been a school teacher and also for a short time, a Roman Catholic nun in the Carmelite Order. She wrote at least 35 fantasy novels and I read many of them. She specialized in "strong women" i.e. women who could do action as well as romance. The figure above is "Serroi," a hybrid human/alien who endured abuse from her magical mentor and went on to have many adventures and conflicts. The books starring this character were published in the early to mid-1980s. I never got to illustrate Clayton's work professionally but I did a number of sketches such as this one.
Red ink on sketchbook page, about 4" x 6", 1990s.
2 comments:
I love Jo Clayton's work! It's been years since I had my hands on any. I remember the cow people. A Carmelite, eh. I wonder to what extent that informs her work. And 35 novels. Obviously I barely scratched the surface. More to read! Good!
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