YA Fantasy's Best Known Authors with Bibliographic Information

1.    Leigh Bardugo

    Leigh Bardugo was born in Jerusalem, Israel and grew up in Los Angeles, where she was raised by her grandparents. She attended Yale University, where she received a degree in English in the spring of 1997. Before publishing her first novel, she worked as a copywriter and journalism, as well as a makeup artist and in special effects.

    She is the creator of the Grishaverse, the Six of Crows duology, and The Language of Thorns among many others. She has also written essays and short stories. She has revealed that she suffers from osteonecrosis, which is death of bone tissue due to interruption of blood supply. (Leigh Bardugo, n.d).

2.    Holly Black (Urban fantasy)

    Holly Black was born in West Long Branch, New Jersey in 1971. She graduated with a B.A. in English from The College of New Jersey in 1994. For some time, she worked as a production editor on medical journals while studying at Rutgers University. She also edited and contributed to the “d8” magazine, which focused on the culture of role-play. (Holly Black, n.d).

    Black’s first novel was Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale, published in 2002. Since then, there have been two other sequels set in the same universe: Valiant and Ironside. In 2003, she published the first two books of The Spiderwick Chronicles with the last two books being released in 2004. White Cat followed in 2010 as a part of the Curse Workers series. Red Glove came after and the trilogy concluded with Black Heart in 2010.

3.    J. K. Rowling

    Joanne Rowling was born on July 31, 1965 in Bristol, and moved around to Gloucestershire in England and Chepstow, Gwent, in south-east Wales. Her father was an aircraft engineer at the Rolls Royce factory in Bristol and her mother was a science technician in the Chem department at Wyedean Comprehensive. She also has a younger sister.

    Joanne grew up with books and wanted to be a writer from early on. She went on to study at Exter University where her Classics class would help her to create the spells in the Harry Potter series. She also spent a year in Paris. After finishing school, she moved to London and worked several odd jobs, including one as a researcher at Amnesty International.

    She went on to relocate to northern Portugal to teach ESL, got married, and had a daughter. In 1993, she divorced and moved to Edinburgh with her daughter. It was there that she became a teacher.

4.    Sarah J. Maas

    Sarah J. Maas was born in New York and currently lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and dog. She graduated with high honors from Hamilton College in 2008 with a degree in Creative Writing and a minor in Religious Studies. She wrote the first installment of the Throne of Glass series when she was just sixteen.

5.    Mary E. Pearson

    Mary E. Pearson was born in Southern California in 1955. As a child, she enjoyed making up new characters and often introduced herself as those characters lately. Her first experience with storytelling was with her second grade teacher, Mrs. Alsenz. In fourth grade, Mary’s teacher, Mrs. Bonsey, encouraged her writing and inspired her excellence. She later went on to graduate from Long Beach State University with an emphasis in art and worked as an artist for some period of time. In the future, Pearson decided to go to San Diego State University to pursue teaching. Teaching second grade is where she re-discovered her passion for writing. (Pearson, n.d.).

6.    Tamora Pierce

    Tamora Pierce was born in South Connellsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania on December 13, 1954. Her mother originally wanted to name her Tamara. However, the nurse misspelled the name so she legally became “Tamora.” The father worked for the telephone company while the mother went to college to pursue a career as a teacher. Tamora and her sisters grew up in a low-income family. The family always kept books in the house.

Tamora went through a period of writer’s block. The chain was broken in college and in the future in 1976, wrote her first novel, The Song of the Lioness. (Pierce, n.d.).

7.    Stephanie Garber

        Stephanie Garber is the #1 New York Times bestelling and international bestselling auther of the Caraval series. She teaches creative writing at a private college in Northern California, where she takes her students to attend book signings. She also offers writing resources.

8.    Stephenie Meyer

     Stephenie was born in Connecticut in 1973. She was the second of three girls and has three brothers. She went to high school in Scottsdale, Arizona where she was awarded a National Merit Scholarship and attended college at Brigham Young University, where she majored in English with a concentration in literature. She married a church member that she had known as a child and had three boys.

9.    Rick Riordan
    Richard Russell Riordan Jr. was born on June 5, 1964 in San Antonia, Texas. He graduated from Alamo Heights High School and went to college at North Texas State, with the goal of becoming a guitarist. He ended up transferring to the University of Texas where he studied English and History. He received his teaching certification and taught those subject at Presidio Hill School in San Francisco for eight years.

These are just a few examples of authors within the fantasy genre. They can be considered as some of the more well-known ones. 

References

Bardugo, L. (n.d). In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 10, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leigh_Bardugo

Black, H. (n.d). In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 10, 2019, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holly_Black

Pearson, M. (n.d). The long rambling version. About Mary. Retrieved from https://www.marypearson.com/bio.html

Pierce, T. (2019). Tamora Pierce biography. About. http://www.tamora-pierce.net/about/