Tamora Pierce
American writer of fantasy novels for children and adults
Tamora Pierce (born December 13, 1954) is an American writer of fantasy fiction for teenagers, known best for stories featuring young heroines. She made a name for herself with her first book series, The Song of the Lioness (1983–1988), which followed the main character Alanna through the trials and triumphs of training as a knight.
Pierce won the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of the American Library Association in 2013, citing her two quartets Song of the Lioness and Protector of the Small (1999–2002). The annual award recognizes one writer and a particular body of work for "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature".
Pierce's books have been translated into twenty languages.
Early life and education
Pierce was born in South Connellsville, Pennsylvania in Fayette County, on December 13, 1954 to Wayne and Mary Lou Pierce. Her mother wanted to name her "Tamara" but the nurse who filled out her birth certificate misspelled it as "Tamora". When she was five, her sister Kimberly (on whom she based Alanna) was born and a year later her second sister, Melanie, was born. From the time she was five until she was eight, she lived in Dunbar. In June 1963 she and her family moved to California.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Tamora Pierce” is american writer of fantasy novels for children and adults. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tamora, Pierce and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q443681. VIAF identifies the subject as 44626351. The Library of Congress control number is n83009811. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1954, 1983, 1988 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Tamora Pierce” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.