THE NOT MUCH IS SACRED SONGBOOK

Patricia A. Leslie, great-great-granddaughter of a Scottish bagpiper at Queen Victoria's court, is primarily a fiction writer, in the field of speculative fantasy, which is how she got introduced to "filk" singing at fan conventions (although she started composing parodies to popular songs in childhood, and grew up enjoying the recordings of Stan Freberg and Tom Lehrer). Starting about age twenty, she became immersed in traditional folk music of the British Isles, through an interest in Scottish and English country dance. More recently, she expanded her folk repertoire and her public-performance confidence, through workshops given by Irish musician Shay Black, at the Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse. Besides filk and folk songs, her literary output includes novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories, and serious poetry.