This a report on Tamora Pierce I wrote in 8th grade english(it would have been in... early 1999). I can't remember what grade I got-A or A+, I think. Anyway, here goes.
Tamora Pierce writes many good books for young adults. She has received many awards for her books. Despite the fact that she is probably a very busy person, she is friendly enough to e-mail her fans and answer questions about her books or her life.
Tamora Pierce was born on December 13, 1954, and moved around a lot growing up (Liebe and Pierce). She attended the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied social work, film, and psychology (Pierce, Wild Magic). She is married to video maker and actor Tim Liebe and they currently live in Manhattan (Liebe and Pierce). She has five pets: three cats named Vinnie, Scrap, and Ferret and two parakeets named Zorak and Junior Bird-man (Pierce, e-mail). In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a literary agent’s assistant, a head writer for a radio production company, a martial arts movie reviewer, and an investment banking secretary (Pierce, Wild Magic). One of her favorite quotes is "Don't know where we're goin' but there's no use bein' late." from Matthew Quigley, in movie Quigley Down Under (Liebe and Pierce). Another of her favorite quotes is "It's like a fella I knew in El Paso. One time he decided to take all his clothes off and jump in a mess of cactus. I asked him the same question--why. He said, 'I thought it was a good idea at the time.'" from Vin in movie The Magnificent Seven (Liebe and Pierce). One of her many favorite artists is Van Gogh (Liebe and Pierce). Her hobbies include reading, listening to music, watching T.V and movies, different sorts of arts and crafts, such as jewelry making, and animal and bird watching (Pierce, e-mail). Her love for animals shows up in her books, which have lots of animal characters.
With her dad’s encouragement, she started writing in the sixth grade (Pierce, e-mail). Her writing has been influenced by her father, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, her college writing teacher David Bradley, her editors, J.R.R. Tolkien, and a kid’s writer named Gladys Malvern (Pierce, e-mail). She gets her ideas from people, just random ideas, and past obsessions (Pierce, e-mail). For example, when she was a kid, she loved knights and medieval times, which shows in her Song of the Lioness series (Pierce, e-mail). The first thing she had published was an essay she wrote in fourth grade that was published in her local paper, but the first thing she had published as an adult was an article in The Christian Century, a magazine in New York, in 1978 (Pierce, e-mail). The first book she had published was Alanna: The First Adventure, which was published in 1983 (Pierce, e-mail). She has currently written thirteen published books: three four-book series and the first book of another four-book series (Pierce, e-mail). The books in The Song of the Lioness quartet are Alanna:The First Adventure, In the Hand of the Goddess, Woman Who Rides Like a Man, and Lioness Rampant; The Immortals quartet includes Wild Magic, Wolf-Speaker, Emperor Mage, and The Realms of the Gods; the Circle of Magic quartet includes Sandry’s Book, Tris’s Book, Daja’s Book, and Briar’s Book; and the first book of The Protector of the Small quartet is First Test (Pierce, e-mail). She is currently working on the rest of the books in the Protector of the Small quartet another four book series called The Circle Opens (Pierce, e-mail). Wolf-Speaker is her only book that has been a bestseller. It was a bestseller in Australia (Pierce, e-mail). Her books have been on many recommended reading lists and she has received the ZDF Preis der Lesratten, which is a German fantasy book award, for In the Hand of the Goddess (Pierce, e-mail).
In conclusion, Tamora Pierce is a very talented writer who will probably win many more awards for her excellent books and will continue to gain many more fans for her wonderful writing.
Works Cited
About the Author. Wild Magic. By Tamora Pierce. New York: Random House, 1992.
The background came from here.
Pierce, Tamora. "School Report Reply." E-mail to the author. 28 April 1999.
Tamora Pierce's Webpage. Tamora Pierce and Timothy Liebe, eds. 29 March 1999.
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