The Wood Wife

The Wood Wife by Terri Windling was published by Tor Books in 1996, and won the Mythopoeic Award for Novel of the Year. Set in the mountain outskirts of contemporary Tucson, Arizona, the novel could equally be described as magical realism, contemporary fantasy, or mythic fiction. Windling draws on myth, folklore, poetry, and the history of surrealist art to tell the story of a woman who finds her muse in a spirited desert landscape. The plot revolves around a reclusive English poet, Davis Cooper, and his lover, Mexican surrealist painter Anna Naverra—a character remininscent of the real-life Mexican painter Remedios Varo.

Windling subsequently published a very loosely connected story, "The Color of Angels," in 1997.