Ardath Mayhar
Ardath Frances Hurst Mayhar was an American writer and poet. Mayhar wrote over 60 books ranging from science fiction to horror to young adult to historical to westerns. Some of her novels appeared under pseudonyms such as Frank Cannon, Frances Hurst, and John Killdeer. Mayhar began writing fantasy with a story in 1973, and fantasy novels in 1979 after returning with her family to Texas from Oregon.
Mayhar also wrote Through a Stone Wall: Lessons from Thirty Years of Writing.
Personal life
Mayhar was born at Timpson, Texas, and was first inspired to write by finding Arthur Merritt's fantasy The Face in the Abyss on a remote rural news-stand at age 15. Mayhar wrote in 1985:Mayhar left the dairy farm to run a bookstore., The View From Orbit Bookstore in Nacogdoches, Texas, with her husband Joe. She later sold the bookstore, which served the students of Stephen F. Austin State University and people in the East Texas area, providing books that would otherwise have been unavailable locally.
Work
She moved back to Texas to become a fantasy and science-fiction writer, and lived on a place bordering the Attoyac River as it entered the Sam Rayburn Lake, which is in the Big Thicket country.Her juvenile novels were divided between her 'East Texas' series with regional settings, and her fantasy works for that age group. She often featured strong-minded and morally-certain adolescent girl heroines at a time when it was not fashionable to do so.
Until her health began to fail, her reputation was such that she still spoke regularly in the area, drawing large crowds.
Joe R. Lansdale wrote "Ardath Mayhar writes damn fine books!"