'It's that place to belong'

 

“I just love writing. It's magical, it's somewhere else to go, it's somewhere much more dreadful, somewhere much more exciting. Somewhere I feel I belong, possibly more than in the so-called real world.” – Tanith Lee

 

Born in London in September of 1947, Lee authored nearly 100 novels, 300 short stories, 1 children's picture book (Animal Castle), and many poems. She also wrote two episodes of the BBC science fiction series Blake's 7 and was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award’s best novel for her book Death's Master – the second in her “Flat Earth” series.

 

Vibrant and exotic are often words used by critics when describing her writing but perhaps the best thing that might be said about her style is that it can’t be categorized.  Thus, she attracted a broad readership for her works.   

 

Lee, who died of breast cancer in 2015, said that while her own vivid imagination shaped her writing style, she also was influenced by writers “across the board . . . by many.”   In 2024 Lee was honored by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) with their Infinity Award, which posthumously honors creators who died before they could be considered for the organization’s coveted Grand Master Award. 

 

“At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be.  But what I was, of course, was a writer.”