Morgan Llywelyn
| Morgan Llywelyn | |
|---|---|
| Born | Sally Snyder December 3, 1937 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Irish, American |
| Period | 1978- |
| Genre | Historical fantasy, historical fiction |
| Subject | Irish history |
Morgan Llywelyn (born December 3, 1937) is an American-Irish historical fantasy, historical fiction, and historical non-fiction writer. Her fiction has received several awards and has sold more than 40 million copies, and she herself is recipient of the 1999 Exceptional Celtic Woman of the Year Award from Celtic Women International.
Llywelyn was born Sally Snyder in New York in 1937. In her teens, Llywelyn moved to the Dallas area, where she developed a love of horses. By the age of 16, Llywelyn was competing in professional horse shows across the United States. By age 18, she modeled for Neiman Marcus and Arthur Murray. After 15 years of experience as a horse trainer and instructor, she tried out for and narrowly missed making the 1976 United States Olympic Team in Dressage. She was instead shortlisted, missing the cut off score by .05 percent.
With her mother's encouragement and a successfully published article on horse training, she refocused her efforts in tracing the Llywelyn family history and eventually made a career out of writing historical novels that allowed the exploration of her Celtic roots. In reference to this career change, Llywelyn had this to say:
"I have a strong strain of Welsh on my mother's side, which does indeed go back to Llywelyn ap Iorwerth. And Llywelyn the Great! (We have the proven genealogy from the College of Heralds.) She was very proud of her royal Welsh connection. That is why she was so interested in genealogy in the first place, and inspired me to get involved as well ... leading in turn to THE WIND FROM HASTINGS. But both my parents were predominantly Irish – my father totally so – and I spent half the years of my childhood here. So I have always been much more interested in Ireland and its history and legends."
Llywelyn has received several awards for her works. She received the Novel of the Year Award from the National League of American Penwomen for her novel, The Horse Goddess, as well as the Woman of the Year Award from the Irish-American Heritage Committee for Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish. The latter award was presented to her by Ed Koch, then-mayor of New York City.
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