Kara Dalkey

Who is Kara Dalkey?

Kara Mia Dalkey is an American author of young adult fiction and historical fantasy. She was born in Los Angeles and has lived in Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Colorado, and Seattle. Much of her fiction is set in the Heian period of Japan.

She was married to author John Barnes; they divorced in 2001. She is a member of the Pre-Joycean Fellowship and of the Scribblies. She is a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles.

Her works range from The Sword of Sagamore and Steel Rose to Little Sister and The Nightingale. The latter book is part of Terri Windling's Fairy Tale Series. Her short stories are featured in the Liavek anthologies, Firebirds: An Anthology of Original Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Firebirds Rising. Liavek was a shared-world series edited by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly. Ace Books published Liavek and thus many of the Scribblies' first short stories.

She is also a musician and has gigged extensively on electric bass and harmony vocals, with such bands as Runestone, the Albany Free Traders, and Nate Bucklin and the Ensemble and Relic and Voodoo Blue At different times she has also played drums, banjo and acoustic guitar. She is a songwriter, but her total output is low, and consequently no CD or other album is presently in the works.