

Stance on fanfiction ĭespite getting her own start as a fan fiction author, she and her agent forbade fan fiction based on her own books for many years, whether distributed offline or online. She divorced Tony Lackey, and eventually married Larry Dixon. Lackey claims to have been writing so much during this time that she had no social life at all. During this time, Marion Zimmer Bradley included Lackey's short stories in an anthology, Friends of Darkover. Cherryh helped Lackey through 17 rewrites of 'Arrows'. Her first sale was to Friends of Darkover. Lackey submitted a story to Sword and Sorceress, then sold the rewritten story to Fantasy Book Magazine. Lackey signing autographs at CONvergence, 2008 She began publishing work in science fiction fanzines and then discovered filk and had some filk lyrics published by Off Centaur Publications. Lackey then encountered fan fiction, which further encouraged her writing. He helped her analyze books she enjoyed and then use that knowledge. While at Purdue, she took a one-on-one class of English Literature Independent Studies with a professor who was a fellow science fiction fan. She wrote for herself but without real direction or purpose until she attended Purdue University. Lackey had difficulties obtaining enough interesting books from the public library to sate her passion for reading. She then read Andre Norton's Beast Master and Lord of Thunder and continued to read all of Norton's works.

She places her meeting with science fiction at age 10 or 11, when she picked up her father's copy of James H. Her birth prevented her father from being called to serve in the Korean War. She has been called one of the "most prolific science fiction and fantasy writers of all time." In 2021, Lackey was named the 38th Damon Knight Grand Master. Lackey has published over 140 books and writes novels at a rate of 5.5 per year on average. These novels explore issues of ecology, social class, and gender roles. She has also published several novels re-working well-known fairy tales set in a mid-19th to early 20th century setting in which magic is real, although hidden from the mundane world. The Bedlam's Bard books describe a young man with the power to work magic through music the SERRAted Edge books are about racecar driving elves and the Diana Tregarde thrillers center on a Wiccan who combats evil. Her other main world is one much like our own, but it includes clandestine populations of elves, mages, vampires, and other mythical beings. Her Valdemar novels include interaction between human and non-human protagonists with many different cultures and social mores.

Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Valdemar. Mercedes Ritchie Lackey (born June 24, 1950) is an American writer of fantasy novels.
