[1] While pursuing her Masters, she worked for the Los Angeles Police Academy and began writing her first novels.

Writing in Strange Horizons, Kari Sperring calls Kurtz the "first writer of secondary-world historical fantasy", noting her close attention to the importance of faith in pre-modern Western societies and her portrayal of magic as a formal, ritual practice as opposed to the "picaresque and informal" way magic was depicted in other fantasy of the time.

Until 2007, they lived at Holybrooke (Hollybrook) Hall, in the largest of four houses formed from the original historic building, between Kilmacanogue and Bray in County Wicklow, Ireland.

They put their Irish home on the market in 2006 for 3.5 million euro,[6] and in 2007 moved back to the United States, to a historic house in Virginia.

As of 2016, the series consists of five trilogies, one stand-alone novel, various short stories, and two reference books.