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ABOUT KATE FORSYTH Kate Forsyth was born in the city of Sydney, Australia, in 1966. Ever since Kate was young she has always wanted to be a writer, and she learned to read at a young age. Her first novel was written at the age of seven and was heavily influenced by Enid Blyton, her favourite childrens aurthor. After graduating in a Bachelor of Arts in Literature from Macquarie University Kate worked as a full time journalist, including Editor of Hair and deputy editor of Money Watch before quitting to work freelance, writing articles for Vogue Australia, Black & White, Studio Bambini, Mode Brides, Interiors and Australian Collections amongst others. Freelancing allowed her to concentrate more on her poetry and to be President of the Poets Union. She publishes her poetry under her maiden name, Kate Humphrey, which has appeared in Australian newspapers, such as The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Bulletin, and domestic and international literary magazines. She returned to writing novels, using a serious literary novel as the thesis for her Master of Arts in Writing. To relieve the tedium of studying the post-modernist, post-structuralist, post-deconstructionist theories of Lacan, Derrida and de Saussure for her exams, Kate started devouring a multi-book fantasy series. The turning point was when her ever-supportive husband, Greg Forsyth, said, ‘You read those things, why don’t you write one?’ And so she did. Kates series called The Witches of Eileanan follows the adventures of a pair of twins, Isabeau and Iseult, as they battle to restore magic to its proper place in the land, on the way discovering their own true destinies. Kate believes Eileanan is a land far, far away from our own world but it has many echoes with it, except that in Eileanan magic has been celebrated and developed, while we have chosen to follow the path of science and technology. The Witches of Eileanan is based on the premise that a group of Scottish witches fled the persecution of witches in the 16th century to discover a new land where they could worship their pagan, pantheistic religion and practise their magic in freedom. It draws strongly on Scottish folklore and history, though is not in any way meant to be set in Scotland. Kate chose this Scottish atmosphere primarily because her family history is Scottish and so she was brought up on many of the old tales, which coloured Kate's imagination vividly. Originally supposed to be three books, the series of The Witches of Eileanan is now six books in total. The first book, Dragonclaw, was short-listed for the 1997 Aurealis awards for Best Australian Fantasy Novel, debuted at No. 8 on the Locus "bestsellers" list and was chosen as one of the best fantasy books of the year in a Locus readers' poll. Book 3, The Cursed Towers, was also short listed for the 1999 Aurealis awards in the same category. Kate still lives in Sydney with her husband Greg, and their beautiful boys, Benjamin and baby Timothy, their daughter Eleanor and a little black cat called Shadow – who was her inspiration for the elven cats in the Witches of Eileanan series. SERIES The Witches of Eileanan
Rhiannon's Ride
Other novels
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