LANTZ, Francess L(in) 1952-2004

(Franklin W. Dixon, a house pseudonym, Lance Franklin, Fran Lantz, Jamie Suzanne, a house pseudonym)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for SATA sketch: Born August 27, 1952, in Trenton, NJ; died of ovarian cancer November 22, 2004, in Santa Barbara, CA. Author. Lantz was a frustrated musician who later became a librarian and then a popular author of young-adult fiction. Graduating from Dickinson College in 1974, she tried to get noticed as a rock musician and song writer without much success. Returning to school, she earned an M.L.S. degree from Simmons College in 1975 and then found work as a children's librarian in Dedham, Massachusetts. Here she found pleasure reading to children and decided to write her own stories when she began running out of books she felt were suitable for her audience. This led to her first publication success, the young-adult novel Good Rockin' Tonight (1982). After leaving her post as a librarian to write full time, Lantz penned numerous stories for young-adult and middle-grade readers under her own name, as well as writing series books pseudonymously for the "Sweet Valley Twins," "Hardy Boys," and "Varsity Coach" series. More recently, in 2003, she had started the "Luna Bay" series for girls. Her books for teens and preteens varied from serious novels such as Fade Far Away (1998) to more humorous tales such as Mom, There's a Pig in My Bed! (1991) and Stepsister from Planet Weird (2000), the latter of which was adapted as a film by Disney Studios. A gourmand, Lantz also contributed restaurant reviews to the Santa Barbara Independent and coauthored a restaurant guide under the pen name The Three Little Pigs.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, December 9, 2004, p. B14.

Washington Post, December 12, 2004, p. C11.