As a youngster, Tamora Pierce often turned to books for comfort. She now hopes that young readers will do the same with her works--fantasy novels featuring strong female protagonists. "I enjoy writing for teenagers," Pierce once explained to Something about the Author (SATA), "because I feel I help to make life easier for kids who are like I was." Pierce told Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers that readers sometimes send her the kind of letters that she might have written as a teenager to the writers who inspired her and helped her to get through rough times; the author said that she find this particularly rewarding.

Pierce was born December 13, 1954, to Wayne and Jacqueline Pierce, who divorced when she was twelve. Pierce had attended eleven schools by the time she graduated from high school. She sought solace and friendship in books. "Books were my constant friends," she recalled in...