S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
Name: CLAYTON, Patricia Jo
Aged: 58
Born: February 15, 1939
Where: Modesto, California
Died: February 13, 1998
Where: Portland, Oregon
Married: No
Interred: Cremated, ashes scattered in California redwoods.
Awarded: _ _ _
Jo Clayton
"I am concerned with the human being who manages to gain a measure of
self-respect and self-reliance in spite of manifold difficulties...especially women."
Attended the University of California in Berkeley, 1956-58; Modesto Junior College, 58-59; and graduated with an English major from the University of Southern California in 1962. For a while Jo thought her life was of use to the Catholic Church and she became a novice nun and school teacher, moving to New Orleans. Eventually, Clayton decided to walk away from that calling and took up both art and writing as complimentary careers.
Described as a writer of Science Fiction & Fantasy Space Operas of extended quests, and often compared to Leigh Brackett, Jo would write approximately 35 novels that seemed to come in clumps of series. But, in fact, her thinking was very ordered and she not only conceived novels in trilogy form, but actually conceived trilogies of trilogies...a feat that would cause many writers to cringe.
Clayton's most famous, and some say best, grouping was the Diadem series. Before her death and during her illness of nearly two years with cancer, Jo completed a second novel of the Drum trilogy and wrote half of a third. In between those novel sequences, Clayton wrote trilogies known as Skeen, Dual of Sorcery, Shadith's Quest, Shadowsong, Dancer, Wild Magic, and Drinker of Souls. She wrote occasional short stories and was active in the various regional SF conventions near where she was living.
Thumbnail from a larger photo by Patti Perret.
ARTWORK: Click on watercolor thumbnail to see some
of Jo's work. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here, or, for Bib/Bio combined at the Jo Clayton Homepage, click here.
BIOGRAPHY:
OBITUARY: The Oregonian
