Holly Black | |
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Black at the 2010 Texas Book Festival
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Born |
West Long Branch, New Jersey |
November 10, 1971
Occupation | Writer, editor, producer |
Nationality | American |
Period | c. 2000–present |
Genre | Children's fantasy, horror |
Website | |
blackholly |
Holly Black née Riggenbach (born November 10, 1971) is an American writer and editor best known for The Spiderwick Chronicles, a series of children's fantasy books she created with writer and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, and a trilogy of Young Adult novels officially called the Modern Faerie Tales trilogy. Her 2013 novel Doll Bones was named a Newbery Medal honor book.
Black was born in West Long Branch, New Jersey in 1971, and during her early years her family lived in a "decrepit Victorian house." Black graduated with a B.A. in English from The College of New Jersey in 1994. She worked as a production editor on medical journals including The Journal of Pain while studying at Rutgers University. She considered becoming a librarian as a backup career, but writing drew her away. She edited and contributed to the role-playing culture magazine d8 in 1996.
In 1999 she married her high school sweetheart, Theo Black, an accomplished illustrator and web designer. In 2008 she was described as residing in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Black's first novel, Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2002. There have been two sequels set in the same universe. The first, Valiant (2005), won the inaugural Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy—as the year's best according to American speculative fiction writers—and it was a finalist, like Tithe, for the annual Mythopoeic Fantasy Award. By vote of Locus readers for the Locus Awards, Valiant and Ironside (2007) ranked fourth and sixth among the year's young-adult books.