I can't 'not' write, and as a result I have no social life! I began writing fantasy because I love it, but I try to construct my fantasy worlds with all the care of a 'high-tech' science fiction writer. 'I began writing out of boredom I continue out of addiction. When I write the 'folk music' of these peoples, I am enriching my whole world, whether I actually use the song in the text or not. Music is very important to medieval peoples bards are the chief newsbringers. Another reason is because of the kind of novels I am writing: that is, fantasy, set in an other-world semi-medieval atmosphere. I frequently will write a lyric when I am attempting to get to the heart of a crucial scene I find that when I have done so, the scene has become absolutely clear in my mind, and I can write exactly what I wanted to say.

One of the reasons I write song lyrics is because I see songs as a kind of 'story pill' - they reduce a story to the barest essentials or encapsulate a particular crucial moment in time.

Maybe that's why I get letters from readers as young as thirteen and as old as sixty-odd. My stories come out of my characters how those characters would react to the given situation. 'I'm a storyteller that's what I see as 'my job'. In addition to her fantasy writing, she has written lyrics for and recorded nearly fifty songs for Firebird Arts & Music, a small recording company specializing in science fiction folk music. During the late 70's she worked as an artist's model and then went into the computer programming field, ending up with American Airlines in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Mercedes entered this world on June 24, 1950, in Chicago, had a normal childhood and graduated from Purdue University in 1972.

Winds of Fate by Mercedes Lackey