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The Borderland series of urban fantasy novels and stories were created for teenage readers by author Terri Windling. Most of the series is set in Bordertown, a dystopian city near the border between "the Elflands" and "The World". The series consists of five anthologies and three novels. The series has spawned fan groups, gaming groups, costumed events (such as the Borderzone parties in Los Angeles), and was discussed in The Fence and the River: Culture and Politics at the US-Mexico Border by Claire F. Fox. [1]
Bordertown is the name of the shared universe created by Terri Windling, and a fictional place within that universe. The premise of the Borderland books is that the "Elflands" - a realm of magic populated by post-Tolkien elves [ clarification needed ] have "returned" to "The World". The region of juxtaposition of the Elflands and the World includes Bordertown or "B-Town", and the "Borderlands" which lie between Bordertown and the World. In the liminal environment of Bordertown and its environs, neither magic nor technology functions "normally", and unpredictable combinations of the two may emerge.
The geographic location of Bordertown in relation to our world is unspecified, although it usually seems to be within North America. Like New York City, Bordertown has a neighborhood named "Soho"; Bordertown's Soho is a largely depopulated part of the city given over to youth from both the World and the Elflands. Some have run away to Bordertown; others have run from something. The stories set in Soho often combine urban fantasy of various forms with a vaguely post-apocalyptic atmosphere.
The Borderlands series, created for teenage readers, focuses primarily but not exclusively on the disenfranchised youth culture of Bordertown, as manifest in gang violence, race relations, and miscegenation, impromptu forms of social organization, class conflict, generation gaps, and literary criticism. The music of the 1980s is a significant influence.
Steven Karl Zoltán Brust is an American fantasy and science fiction author of Hungarian descent. He is best known for his series of novels about the assassin Vlad Taltos, one of a disdained minority group of humans living on a world called Dragaera. His recent novels also include The Incrementalists (2013) and its sequel The Skill of Our Hands (2017), with co-author Skyler White.
Emma Bull is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Her novels include the Hugo- and Nebula-nominated Bone Dance and the urban fantasy War for the Oaks. She is also known for a series of anthologies set in Liavek, a shared universe that she created with her husband, Will Shetterly. As a singer, songwriter, and guitarist, she has been a member of the Minneapolis-based folk/rock bands Cats Laughing and The Flash Girls.
Michael Kandel is an American translator and author of science fiction.
Ellen Kushner is an American writer of fantasy novels. From 1996 until 2010, she was the host of the radio program Sound & Spirit, produced by WGBH in Boston and distributed by Public Radio International.
Terri Windling is an American editor, artist, essayist, and the author of books for both children and adults. She has won nine World Fantasy Awards, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and the Bram Stoker Award, and her collection The Armless Maiden appeared on the short-list for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award.
Will Shetterly is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction best known for his novel Dogland (1997). The novel is inspired by his childhood at the tourist attraction Dog Land owned by his parents. He won the Minnesota Book Award for Fantasy & Science Fiction for his novel Elsewhere (1991), and was a finalist with Nevernever (1993); both books are set in Terri Windling's The Borderland Series shared universe. He has also written short stories for various Borderland anthologies.
Caroline Stevermer is an American writer of young adult fantasy novels and shorter works. She is best known for historical fantasy novels.
Cordelia Caroline Sherman, known professionally as Delia Sherman, is an American fantasy writer and editor. Her novel The Porcelain Dove won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award.
Elizabeth E. Wein is an American-born writer best known for her young adult historical fiction. She holds both American and British citizenship.
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror was a reprint anthology published annually by St. Martin's Press from 1987 to 2008. In addition to the short stories, supplemented by a list of honorable mentions, each edition included a number of retrospective essays by the editors and others. The first two anthologies were originally published under the name The Year's Best Fantasy before the title was changed beginning with the third book.
Bellamy Bach was a group pseudonym used by several New York-based writers in the 1980s, some of whom still remain anonymous. Terri Windling has used the pseudonym when writing stories for the anthologies Bordertown and Life on the Border, which were part of the Borderland series of urban fantasy stories and novels for teenage readers.
Cats Laughing is a folk rock band, founded in the late 1980s in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and revived in 2015. Several of its members, including Emma Bull and best-selling author Steven Brust, are better known as writers of fantasy and science fiction.
Finder is a fantasy novel written by Emma Bull and published in 1994.
Gregory Frost is an American author of science fiction and fantasy, and directs a fiction writing workshop at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa. A graduate of the Clarion Workshop, he has been invited back as instructor several times, including the first session following its move to the University of California at San Diego in 2007. He is also active in the Interstitial Arts Foundation.
Endicott Studio was a nonprofit organization, based in the United States and United Kingdom, that is dedicated to literary, visual, and performance arts inspired by myth, folklore, fairy tales, and the oral storytelling tradition. It was founded in 1987 by Terri Windling, and is co-directed by Windling and Midori Snyder. In 2008, Windling and Snyder won the World Fantasy Award for the Endicott Studio's website and web magazine, The Journal of Mythic Arts.
Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears is the third book in a series of collections of re-told fairy tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.
Black Thorn, White Rose is the second book in a series of collections of re-told fairy tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.
Snow White, Blood Red is the first book in a series of collections of re-told fairy tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling.
The Horns of Elfland is a 1997 fantasy anthology edited by Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman and Donald G. Keller.
The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest is an anthology of fantasy stories edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It was published by Viking Books in May 2002. The anthology itself won the 2003 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology.