Favorite Author: The Woman Who Shaped Her Genre

Orwell.  Austen. Fitzgerald.  Collins.  Roth.  Bray.  Clare.  When I sat down to try and pin point my favorite author, I ran through the gambit of authors that I loved.  I have so many.  It’s a part of how I read: I read one book from an author and fall in love, and then go out and gobble up every other book from that author.  To say I came back to an author over and over again is hard.  There was a lot of mulling and hard concentration before I realized it: Tamora Pierce is my favorite author.

I found Son of the Lioness and Alanna in middle school.  It was a time in my life where I read only medieval style fantasy and there were her books in the library, all in a row (which as a kid, I loved).  Then I read the back: this girl became a Knight.  No, she wasn’t called a ‘lady,’ but a knight and that was it.  I was sold and blazed through the four book series as if my life depended upon it.  Here was a girl who had to act like a boy, dress like a boy, but still have girl thoughts.  This was a girl I could relate to and for a middle schooling trying to find herself?  It meant the world.







For the next few years, I bounced back and forth between Tortall and the Circle of Magic series.  Every new book that came out, I eagerly waited for.  I wanted to read about these people and I wanted to read about all of these very different girls and how they were still girls but they were powerful.  They were respected.  They were women and more importantly now that I’m more than a decade removed from my first reading: they were written by a woman.  I can’t even begin to express what that means for a girl who would steal away time to scribble words of a story in loose pieces of notebook paper crammed into her planner.  At the time, it wasn’t even a big deal.  Only the mature, older me now knows how important that was for me.

Tamora Pierce’s book kept coming throughout my life.  The Trickster’s Duet has always and will always be my favorite.  Then the Circle of Magic kids got one more tale.  Beka Cooper emerged.  The world kept reviving itself and no matter what part of my life I was at, I turned to these books and I found my home.  They welcomed me with open arms and said:  I am woman and I can do this.  And it wasn’t even about being a woman as we think of it in this modern feminist world, it was about being all of these women.  Alanna was a warrior.  Diane was a beautifully kind soul.  Sandry was a weaver.  Aly was a spy.  Daja was a metal worker.  And there are so many other types of women to love and they are young and passionate and capable of anything.





I never got to thank Tamora Pierce.  I never wrote to her to tell her how her works encouraged me to write about a girl in any circumstance.  I suppose I could do that now, but this is my thank you and it isn’t enough.  My first, fully finished story was a piece of fanfiction set in Tortall.  I wrote my own girl to add to the collection and while I can look back at it and see how very young I was when I wrote it, I am proud.  My first finished story.  She got me writing.  She inspired me.

And now, as I am going through edits so that I can pitch my very own story about a brave, young woman, I can’t help but think: if I hadn’t read Tamora Pierce, would I have written this story?  Would I have written any story?

Thank you, Tamora Pierce.  Thank you.






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