Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet is an American fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 author whose most notable book is Tam Lin

Tam Lin (novel)

Tam Lin is a 1991 contemporary fantasy novel by United States author Pamela Dean, who based it on the traditional Scottish border ballad "Tam Lin".-Plot introduction:The protagonist of Tam Lin is Janet Carter...

, based on the Child Ballad

Child Ballads

The Child Ballads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century...

 of the same name

Tam Lin

Tam Lin is the hero of a legendary ballad originating from the Scottish Borders. The story revolves around the rescue of Tam Lin by his true love from the Queen of the Fairies...

, in which the Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 fairy

Fairy

A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...

 story is set on a midwestern college campus loosely based on her alma mater, Carleton College

Carleton College

Carleton College is an independent non-sectarian, coeducational, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, USA. The college enrolls 1,958 undergraduate students, and employs 198 full-time faculty members. In 2012 U.S...

 in Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

.

She was a member of the writing group The Scribblies

The Scribblies

The Scribblies were a fantasy fiction writer's group based in the U.S. city of Minneapolis. Members included Nate Bucklin, Emma Bull, Steven Brust, Kara Dalkey, Pamela Dean, Will Shetterly and Patricia Wrede....

, along with Emma Bull

Emma Bull

Emma Bull is a science fiction and fantasy author whose best-known novel is War for the Oaks, one of the pioneering works of urban fantasy. She has participated in Terri Windling's Borderland shared universe, which is the setting of her 1994 novel Finder...

, Will Shetterly

Will Shetterly

Will Shetterly is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction best known for his novel Dogland . The novel is inspired by his childhood at the tourist attraction Dog Land owned by his parents...

, Kara Dalkey

Kara Dalkey

Kara Mia Dalkey is an American author of young adult fiction and historical fantasy. She was born in Los Angeles and has lived in Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Colorado, and Seattle. Much of her fiction is set in the Heian period of Japan....

, Nate Bucklin, Patricia Wrede

Patricia Wrede

Patricia Collins Wrede is an American fantasy writer from Chicago, Illinois.The eldest of five children, she graduated from Carleton College in 1974 with a BA in Biology, married James Wrede in 1976 , and obtained an MBA from University of Minnesota in 1977.She finished her first book in 1978,...

 and Steven Brust

Steven Brust

Steven Karl Zoltán Brust is an American fantasy and science fiction author of Hungarian descent. He was a member of the writers' group The Scribblies, which included Emma Bull, Pamela Dean, Will Shetterly, Nate Bucklin, Kara Dalkey, and Patricia Wrede; he also belongs to the Pre-Joycean...

, and was a contributor to the Liavek

Liavek

Liavek is a shared world brought to life in a series of five fantasy anthologies edited by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly.-Contributors:Contributors include Bull, Shetterly, Gene Wolfe, Jane Yolen, John M. Ford, Kara Dalkey, Barry B. Longyear, Megan Lindholm, Nancy Kress, Patricia C. Wrede, Steven...

 shared-world anthologies.

She is a member of the Pre-Joycean Fellowship

Pre-Joycean Fellowship

Several writers known for fantasy and science fiction have semi-seriously called themselves the Pre-Joycean Fellowship to indicate that they value 19th-century values of storytelling, including clarity, called by Jane Yolen the "lovely limpid quality" of writing...

.

At present Dean reports that Going North, the future "joint sequel to The Dubious Hills and The Whim of the Dragon", is still a work in progress.

• The Secret Country (1985, reissued in 2003)
• The Hidden Land (The Secret Country Trilogy, Vol.