[1] The connections that both Bull and Garland had with the science fiction and fantasy communities allowed them to have an unusually notable group of people writing songs for and with them, including Jane Yolen, Alan Moore, and Neil Gaiman.
During their time apart between "Maurice and I" and "Wild Queen," the duo continued to write material, and in early 2001 Bull flew back to Minneapolis for an intense two-weeks of recording sessions.
Although the concert went off without a hitch, the pair adopted these names as their alter egos and made up a fictional history of a female Irish folk duo in the 1920s and used it as a theme for their first record, "The Return of Pansy Smith and Violet Jones."
A number of folk songs mention "flash girls," most notably the one attributed by Bull's husband Will Shetterly as being the source for the group's name, "House-husband's Lament (Rocking the Cradle)."
Both The Flash Girls and Bull's former group, Cats Laughing, have been mentioned in Shetterly's stories for the fantasy fiction shared universe Borderland.