Jane Yolen

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Jane Hyatt Yolen (born February 11, 1939) is an American writer of fantasy, science fiction, and children's books. She is the author or editor of more than 400 books, of which the best known is The Devil's Arithmetic, a Holocaust novella.<ref name=Locus>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Newsweek>Template:Cite web</ref> Her other works include the Nebula Award−winning short works "Sister Emily's Lightship" and "Lost Girls", Owl Moon, The Emperor and the Kite, and the Commander Toad series. She has collaborated on works with all three of her children, most extensively with Adam Stemple.<ref name=Locus/>

Yolen delivered the inaugural Alice G. Smith Lecture at the University of South Florida in 1989. In 2012 she became the first woman to give the Andrew Lang lecture.<ref name=Wired>Adams, John Joseph; Barr Kirtley, David (January 23, 2013). "Author Jane Yolen Talks Book Banning and Harry Potter". Wired.</ref> Yolen published her 400th book in early 2021, Bear Outside.<ref name="scalzi">Template:Cite web</ref>

Early life

Jane Hyatt Yolen was born on February 11, 1939, at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. She is the first child of Isabell Berlin Yolen, a psychiatric social worker who became a full-time mother and homemaker upon Yolen's birth, and Will Hyatt Yolen, a journalist who wrote columns at the time for New York newspapers,<ref name=OfficialBio>Template:Cite web</ref> and whose family emigrated from Ukraine to the United States.<ref name=Locus/> Both of Yolen's parents were Jewish, and raised her secular-Jewish.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Isabell also did volunteer work, and wrote short stories in her spare time. However, she was not able to sell them. Because the Hyatts, the family of Yolen's grandmother, Mina Hyatt Yolen, only had girls, a number of the children of Yolen's generation were given their last name as a middle name in order to perpetuate it.<ref name=OfficialBio/>

When Yolen was barely one year old, the family moved to California to accommodate Will's new job working for Hollywood film studios, doing publicity on films such as American Tragedy and Knut Rockne. The family moved back to New York City prior to the birth of Yolen's brother, Steve. When Will joined the Army as a Second Lieutenant to fight in England during World War II, Yolen, her mother and brother lived with her grandparents, Danny and Dan, in Newport News, Virginia. After the war, the family moved back to Manhattan, living on Central Park West and 97th Street until Yolen turned 13. She attended PS 93, where she enjoyed writing and singing, and became friends with future radio presenter Susan Stamberg. She also engaged writing by creating a newspaper for her apartment with her brother that she sold for five cents a copy. She was accepted to Music and Art High School. During the summer prior to that semester, she attended a Vermont summer camp, which was her first involvement with the Society of Friends (Quakers). Her family also moved to a ranch house in Westport, Connecticut, where she attended Bedford Junior high for ninth grade, and then Staples High School.<ref name=OfficialBio/> She received a BA from Smith College in 1960 and a master's degree in Education from the University of Massachusetts in 1978.<ref name=Locus/> After graduating she moved back to New York City.<ref name=OfficialBio/>

Career

Although Yolen considered herself a poet and a journalist/nonfiction writer, to her surprise she became a children's book writer. Her first published book was Pirates in Petticoats, which she sold on her 22nd birthday, February 11, 1961.<ref name="OfficialBio" />

During the 1960s, Yolen held editorial positions at various magazines and publishers in New York City, including Gold Medal Books, Routledge Books, and Alfred A. Knopf Juvenile Books. From 1990 to 1996 she ran her own young adult fiction imprint, Jane Yolen Books, at Harcourt Brace.<ref name="Locus" />

She has co-written two books with her son, the writer and musician Adam Stemple, Pay the Piper and Troll Bridge, both part of the Rock 'n' Roll Fairy Tale series.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She also wrote lyrics for the song "Robin's Complaint," recorded on the 1994 album Antler Dance by Stemple's band Boiled in Lead.<ref name="greenman">Template:Cite web</ref>

As of 2021, Yolen has written more than 400 books.<ref name="scalzi" />

Personal life

In 1962, Yolen married David W. Stemple. They had three children, including musician Adam Stemple, and six grandchildren. David Stemple died in March 2006. Yolen lives in Hatfield, Massachusetts. She also owns a house in Scotland, where she lives for a few months each year.<ref name="Locus" /><ref name="OfficialBio" />

Awards

Nominations

  • 1984 World Fantasy Award for Anthology/Collection (for Tales of Wonder)<ref name="WorldFantasy" />
  • 1986 World Fantasy Award for Anthology/Collection (for Dragonfield and Other Stories)<ref name="WorldFantasy" />
  • 1987 World Fantasy Award for Anthology/Collection (for Merlin's Booke)<ref name="WorldFantasy" />
  • 1989 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella (for Briar Rose)<ref name="WorldFantasy" />
  • 1993 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel (for The Devil's Arithmetic)<ref name="WorldFantasy" />
  • 2009 Sydney Taylor Book Award Younger Reader Honor (for Naming Liberty, illustrated by Jim Burke)<ref name="sydney taylor">Template:Cite web</ref>
  • 2021 Sydney Taylor Book Award Picture Book Honor (for Miriam at the River, illustrated by Khoa Le)<ref name="sydney taylor" />

Similarity to Harry Potter

Regarding the similarities between her 1991 novel Wizard's Hall and the Harry Potter series, Yolen has commented:

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Bibliography

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References

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