Bio
Holly Thompson
Short bio:
Holly Thompson (www.hatbooks.com) is the author of the picture books Listening to Trees: George Nakashima, Woodworker; The Wakame Gatherers; Twilight Chant; and One Wave at a Time, and the verse novels Falling into the Dragon's Mouth, The Language Inside, and Orchards. A graduate of the NYU Creative Writing Program, and a longtime resident of Japan, she writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction for children, teens and adults, and teaches creative writing in Japan, the U.S., and places in between.
Medium bio:
Holly Thompson (www.hatbooks.com), longtime resident of Japan, is the author of three verse novels for young people: Falling into the Dragon's Mouth; The Language Inside; and Orchards--winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. She is also author of the picture book biography Listening to Trees: George Nakashima, Woodworker; The Wakame Gatherers about a girl gathering seaweed with two grandmothers; and the poetry picture books Twilight Chant and One Wave at a Time. She edited Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction—An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories featuring ten stories in translation. Holly is a graduate of the NYU Creative Writing Program and is a Regional Advisor Emeritus of SCBWI Japan. Now based in Massachusetts, she writes and translates poetry, fiction and nonfiction for children, teens and adults; teaches writing at Yokohama City University, Boston's GrubStreet, and UC Berkeley Extension; and visits schools in Japan, the U.S. and places in between.
Longer bio:
Holly's writing often relates to Japan and Asia. Her picture book Listening to Trees: George Nakashima, Woodworker, a biography written in haibun form (a combination of haiku and prose) and illustrated by Toshiki Nakamura, celebrates the life and work of this visionary Japanese American craftsman (Neal Porter Books, 2024). Her picture book The Wakame Gatherers (Shen's/Lee and Low, 2007, 2022) depicts a bicultural girl who goes seaweed gathering with her Japanese and American grandmothers. Holly's middle-grade verse novel Falling into the Dragon's Mouth (Holt/Macmillan 2016) depicts Jason, an outsider American in a Japanese school attempting to use his aikido skills as he faces an escalating bullying situation. Her YA verse novel The Language Inside (Delacorte/Random House, 2013) deals with language both spoken and unspoken and, through poetry that crosses boundaries, connecting a Japan-raised American girl with a Cambodian-American boy and the patients they assist in a long-term care center. In her YA verse novel Orchards (Delacorte/Random House, 2011), which received the 2012 APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, Kana, a half Japanese and half Jewish-American girl, is sent to spend the summer with Shizuoka relatives after the death of a classmate. Her novel Ash (Stone Bridge Press, 2001), set in Kagoshima and Kyoto, has been recommended as a teaching tool in high school and university classrooms studying Japan, Asia and intercultural issues.
Holly's picture book Twilight Chant (Clarion, 2018) is a lyrical exploration of the transition between day and night and of the animals who thrive during this special time. Her One Wave at a Time (Albert Whitman, 2018) is a picture book story in free verse about grief and healing.
Holly also compiled, edited, and wrote the foreword to, Tomo: Friendship through Fiction--An Anthology of Japan Teen Fiction (Stone Bridge Press, 2012), a young adult anthology of Japan-related fiction to benefit teens impacted by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. For more information about Tomo, visit the Tomo blog.
Holly's short stories, poetry and articles have been published in magazines and journals in the United States and Japan. For a number of years she was a regular contributor to Wingspan, the ANA inflight magazine. She is a Regional Advisor Emeritus of the Japan chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI Japan).
Holly Thompson is represented by Jamie Weiss Chilton of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency.
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