Tamora Pierce is the author that has been on my bookshelf the longest. It was her book Wolf-Speaker, the second in her The Immortals quartet, that made me want to pick up books in the first place. While on one of my latest ventures to my local Barnes and Noble, I realized that she had published a new book called Tempests and Slaughter just this past February.
I honestly hadn’t realized she was still writing.
Wild Magic, the first of The Immortals quartet, was originally published in 1992, when I was only a toddler. Of course, even after I started reading her books when I was a young teen, Pierce had continued to write and publish books, but for some reason I still didn’t think she was writing new stories.
Doing some math, I realized that Pierce is 64 and still writing. Her first book was published when she was 29, meaning she has been writing for 35 years. She grew up on fantasy and science fiction and adored so many stories about fantastic warriors and battles, and I find it inspiring that she wrote about many of the same elements that she loved with the crucial addition of female heroes. She wrote the stories that she needed to hear while struggling through her teens and twenties on her way to following her dreams.
“Write what you know” is one of the main writing tips I always see, but I quite like the idea of “write what you need” better.
Which book or series has lived on your bookshelf the longest?
