Alicia Austin

Born in 1942, in Providence, Kentucky, Alicia Austin was an experienced traveler from an early age. Since her father was a career man with the U.S.Army, at three, she was living in Germany, at eleven, in Yokahama, Japan. In between were stops from California to Texas to Arkansas. With all this moving about, books became a haven with bright colored worlds that remained constant. The early influences of illustrators such as Dulac, Rackham, Beardsley, and Wyeth were to show up years later in her own work when she entered the field of professional illustration with numerous assignments for illustrations in fanzines and professional publications. "The sense of capturing those moments in a story and putting it on paper for the reader is a driving force. Interior illustrations offer a larger scope and give many more chances to play with the story."

An art scholarship to Sacred Heart Dominican College in Houston, Texas offered four years to learn the basics of the field, while her double major of biology satisfied the other half of her interests. Her education at Sacred Heart came into play with the illustrations she later began creating for fanzines such as Energumen, Granfalloon, Aspidistra, and Science Fiction Review.

After selling every piece of work entered into the 1969 Sci-Fi Worldcon in St. Louis, she began to accept professional assignments in the first two Universe anthologies edited by Terry Carr. Next, Alicia became a regular artist for Vertex magazine. Approached by Donald Grant, she created her first color work for his publication of Robert E. Howard's poetry in Echoes from an Iron Harp. This book was the first of many published by Grant for which she did cover and interior illustrations. Other illustrated books followed, for Grant as well as other publishers.

Alicia has explored many topics through her career as an illustrator. While a traditionally European based sense of fantasy was the jumping off point for much of her work, other areas have not been neglected. Oriental, Russian, Far, Near and Middle Eastern realms have all been part of the tapestry of her art. The most recent explorations have been into the vast and exciting worlds of Native American mythologies. Ranging from the humor and exuberance of some of the tales to mystical, powerful interpretations of creation stories, they represent some of her finest, most mature work.

Presently living in Los Angeles, Alicia continues to add to an impressive body of work. She is currently working with FTL Publications to produce cover and interior art for this small-press publisher of science fiction and fantasy titles.

"I come from the traditions of those late Victorian-early 20th Century book illustrators whose visionary fantasies raised book illustration to the level of fine art. A deep love of fantasy, fairy tales, folklore and mythology has led me into the explorations of the stories of Native Americans. I'm attracted by the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of the mythologies as well as the joy and fun of many of the tales, especially those of the animal people in the "before time" when there was little or no barrier between the Animal Folk and Humans."