Tamora Pierce

The annual award recognizes one writer and a particular body of work for "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature". Pierce's books have been translated into twenty languages.

Tamora Pierce studied at University of Pennsylvania and Albert Gallatin High School. The recorded working language is English. Places of work recorded in the authority are Syracuse. Works named in the authority record are The Song of the Lioness and The Immortals. Distinctions recorded are Margaret Edwards Award and Edward E. Smith Memorial Award.

• Name — Tamora Pierce • Born — 13 December 1954 • Birthplace — South Connellsville, Pennsylvania, U.S. • Occupation — Writer • Genre — Children's and young adult fantasy • Notable Works — The Song of the Lioness • Website — tamora-pierce.net

Pierce was born in South Connellsville, Pennsylvania in Fayette County, on December 13, 1954 to Wayne and Mary Lou Pierce. Her mother wanted to name her "Tamara" but the nurse who filled out her birth certificate misspelled it as "Tamora". When she was five, her sister Kimberly (on whom she based Alanna) was born and a year later her second sister, Melanie, was born. From the time she was five until she was eight, she lived in Dunbar. In June 1963 she and her family moved to California. They first lived in San Mateo on El Camino Real and then moved to the other side of the San Francisco Peninsula, in Miramar. They lived in Miramar for half a year, in El Granada a full year, and then three years in Burlingame. She began reading when she was very young and started writing when she was in the sixth grade. Her interest in fantasy and science fiction began when she was introduced to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and so she started to write the kind of books that she was reading. After her parents divorced, her mother moved her and her sisters back to Fayette County in 1969, where she spent two years at Albert Gallatin Senior High. When her family moved again, she spent her senior year at Uniontown Area Senior High School, acting, singing, and writing for the school paper. She is an alumna of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

While at the University of Pennsylvania, Pierce wrote the books that became The Song of the Lioness quartet. The first book of this quartet, Alanna: The First Adventure was published by Atheneum Books in 1983. Pierce lived with her husband Tim Liebe (Spouse-Creature) in New York City, with their four cats and multiple other pets, until they moved to Syracuse, New York. In 2008, she donated her archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University. Pierce was also actively involved in moderating and discussing her novels on a message board called Sheroes Central from about 2001-2006, at which point it was acquired by a third party.

Year-end lists • Year — Publication — Work — Category — Result — Ref • 2012 — NPR — Circle of Magic Series — 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels — 86 • The Immortals Series — 83 • Trickster's Choice Duology — 81 • The Song of the Lioness Series — 50 • 2018 — Paste — Trickster's Queen — The 50 Best Fantasy Books of the 21st Century (So Far) — 17 • 2019 — Trickster's Choice Duology — 10 Exceptional Audiobooks Written and Narrated by Women — 4 • 2020 — Time — Alanna: The First Adventure — 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time

In November 2018, the first line of officially licensed merchandise was created in partnership with Dual Wield Studio: pins, apparel and accessories developed in collaboration with creators from the Tamora Pierce fanbase. The collection expanded in 2020 to include a rendition of the map of Tortall. At the end of 2023, Dual Wield Studio announced a new collection celebrating the 40th anniversary of Alanna: The First Adventure.

Tamora Pierce is recorded as writer and novelist.

• "Podcast Interview about 'White Tiger' with Tamora Pierce and Timothy Liebe" • "Tiger Tiger Burning Bright: Pierce Talks 'White Tiger'" by David Richards, Comic Book Resources, March 6, 2006 • "Eye of the White Tiger: Meet Marvel's Tamora Pierce" by Newsarama, February 27, 2006 * • Cart, Michael, From Romance to Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature (New York: HarperCollins, 1996) * • Egoff, Sheila A., Worlds Within: Children’s Fantasy from the Middle Ages to Today (Chicago & London: American Library Association, 1988) • Melano, Anne L., "Utopias of Violence: Pierce's Knights of Tortall and the Contemporary Heroic" (Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, vol 3 issue 2, 2009) • Lennard, John, Tamora Pierce: The Immortals (Tirril: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007) • -- 'Of Stormwings and Valiant Women: The Tortallan World of Tamora Pierce', in Of Modern Dragons and other essays on Genre Fiction (Tirril: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007), pp. 191–228 • Sullivan III, C. W., ed., Young Adult Science Fiction (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999 Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy 79) • Trites, Roberta Seelinger, Disturbing the Universe: Power and Repression in Adolescent Literature (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000)