RIP, author Carol Emshwiller

Author Carol Emshwiller has died at the age of 97, after a long and distinguished career in science fiction, fantasy and other genres.

Emshwiller has been publishing since 1955, and while she is best known for her fantasy and science fiction, my favorite work of hers is the superb and moving western Ledoyt, published in 1995.

Carol Emshmiller was married to the illustrator and experimental filmmaker Ed "Emsh" Emshwiller, with whom she had three children.

I never met Carol Emshwiller, but her work stayed with me for decades, and I'm glad she lived such a long and productive life.

Though best known as a story writer, Emshwiller also wrote strange, powerful novels, including Carmen Dog (1988), set in a world where women transform into dogs (and vice versa); alien invasion tale The Mount (2002), a Philip K. Dick Award winner; YA Mister Boots (2005) about a man who transforms into a horse (or vice versa); and aliens-stranded-on-Earth novel The Secret City (2007). She also wrote a pair of Westerns, Ledoyt (1995) and sequel Leaping Man Hill (1999). She received a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2005, and was a World Fantasy guest of honor in 2007.

Agnes Carolyn Fries was born April 12, 1921 in Ann Arbor MI. She attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, earning BAs in Music and Design, and attended the Ecole Nationale Suprieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1949-50 as a Fulbright Fellow. In 1949 she married artist and experimental filmmaker Ed Emshwiller; he predeceased her in 1990.