Karr was born Phyllis Ann Karmilowicz in Oakland, California. Karmilowicz was later shortened to Karr, under which name she married and writes.^[1] She married, June 2, 1990, in Washburn County, Wisconsin, Clifton Alfred Hoyt, who died November 4, 2005, in Solon Springs, Wisconsin. She lives in Drummond, Wisconsin.

Karr's primary literary interests, reflected in both her fiction and non-fiction, include Arthurian legend, William Shakespeare, the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, and L. Frank Baum's Oz books. Her early works, including literary articles, poetry, and fantasy and mystery short stories, began appearing in the 1970s. Her short works have been published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine, The Gilbert & Sullivan Journal, The Savoyard, Library Review, Oziana, The Baum Bugle, and other journals, as well as various anthologies. Her earliest work was under the pen name of "Frances Lauren."

Karr's first novels were romances, including Lady Susan, an expansion of the work of the same name by Jane Austen. These were followed by a number of fantasy novels, notably the "Frostflower" books and the Arthurian whodunnit The Idylls of the Queen. Between 1986 and 2001 she published no novels, concentrating instead on shorter works. Some of her early fantasy novels have since been reissued by Wildside Press. Some of her romance novels have also appeared in Italian translation.

Her major nonfiction work is The King Arthur Companion (1983), later expanded as The Arthurian Companion (1997), the first edition of which the author considered unsatisfactory owing to omissions and errors committed by the publisher; a corrected edition appeared in 2001

Frostflower series edit

• Frostflower and Thorn (1980) ISBN 0425045404
• Frostflower and Windbourne (1982) ISBN 0425055914

Other novels edit

• The Idylls of the Queen (1982) ISBN 1587150123
• Wildraith's Last Battle (1982) ISBN 0441889697
• At Amberleaf Fair (1986) ISBN 0-441-52009-X
• The Gardener's Boy of Oz (1988)
• The Follies of Sir Harald (2001) ISBN 1-928999-21-2
• The Gallows in the Greenwood (2002) ISBN 1-58715-632-6
• The Bloody Herring: A Gilbert & Sullivan Space Fantasy (2014) ISBN 1306538920
• All But a Pleasure: An Alternate-History Role-Playing Romance Murder Mystery (2016) ISBN 978-1479408023
• The Vampire of the Savoy (2020) ISBN 978-1-4794-5265-1
• The Wisdom of Sir Harald (2022)ISBN 9781005559809
• The Ring of Tumboni (2020) ISBN 979-8406562345

Romance novels edit

• My Lady Quixote (1980)
• Lady Susan (1980)
• Meadowsong (1981)
• Perola (1982)
• The Elopement (1982)

Nonfiction edit

• The King Arthur Companion (1983; expanded as The Arthurian Companion, 1997; 2nd ed. 2001) ISBN 978-1928999133.

Short stories edit

Fantasies edit

Mysteries edit

• "For Cake with Clotted Cream" (1974)
• "Blood Money" (1975)
• "Old Horny's Hounds" (1975)
• "The Ass's Head" (1996)
• "Love's Labour's Discover'd" (1998)

Translations edit

• "The Coffeepot" (Théophile Gautier) (1985)
• "The Plague-Man" (Jean Richepin) (1988)
• "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (Henri Blaze from Goethe's ballade) (1997)

Articles edit

• "Ruddy George - A Parody" (1974)
• "The Odd Couple: W. Shakespeare and J. F. Ducis" (1975)
• "Who Was the Traitor of Troy?" (1976)
• "The Two Endings of Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross'" (1977)
• "The Curious Case of King Kaliko" (1978)
• "Ruthven's Defection Re_Examined" (1982)
• "The Canonization of Merry-Go-Round" (1983)
• "Jessica Amanda Salmonson" (1984)
• "The Last Temptation of Arthur" (1989)
• "Kay and Morgan and Me." (1989)
• "The Vampire as Shaman" (1990)
• "Recipes: Bran Cookies & Bran 'Bumps'" (1991)
• "Karmilowicz Coffee Cake" (recipe) (1998)
• "St. Ann Parish History" (2002)

Poetry edit

• "Rondel for Rulers" (1975)
• "Perran Sands" (1976)
• "An Idyll of the Grail" (1996)
• "The Yin and Yang of It" (1998)
• "The Last Idle of the King" (2000)

Now dead/squatted upon by Japanese advertising: *"Phyllis Ann Karr, Author" - author's website

• Phyllis Ann Karr at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database  
• Phyllis Ann Karr at Fantastic Fiction
• Phyllis Ann Karr at the online Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997)