Laini Taylor (born December 22, 1971) is an American

young adult A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

author and a finalist for the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

in Young People's Literature, best known for the ''

Daughter of Smoke and Bone ''Daughter of Smoke and Bone'' is a fantasy novel written by Laini Taylor. Published in September 2011 by Hachette Book Group, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. The story follows Karou, a seventeen-year-old Prague art student. Karou w ...

'' series, '' Strange the Dreamer'', and '' Muse of Nightmares''.

Biography

Taylor was born in

Chico, California Chico ( ; Spanish for "little") is the most populous city in Butte County, California. Located in the Sacramento Valley region of Northern California, the city had a population of 101,475 in the 2020 census, reflecting an increase from 86,18 ...

, grew up as a US military kid in Europe and California, and earned her English degree from

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

. She currently lives in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

with her husband and daughter. She always wanted to be a writer, and was 35 before she finished her first novel.

Career

In 2004, she wrote a

graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

for

Image Comics Image Comics is an American comic book publisher and is the third largest comic book and graphic novel publisher in the industry in both unit and market share. It was founded in 1992 by several high-profile illustrators as a venue for creator-ow ...

, illustrated by her husband, Jim Di Bartolo. Her first novel, ''Dreamdark: Blackbringer'', was published in 2007. The sequel, ''Dreamdark: Silksinger'', was a winner of the 2009

Cybil Award The Cybils Awards, or Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards, are a set of annual book awards given by people who blog about children's and young-adult books. Co-founded by Kelly Herold and Anne Boles Levy in 2006, the awards were c ...

. In 2011, she published ''

, a'' young adult fantasy series. The first book in the series was chosen by

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

as the Best Teen Book of 2011, and the sequel, '' Days of Blood and Starlight'', was also on the list in 2012. In 2017, she published '' Strange the Dreamer,'' followed by its sequel '' Muse of Nightmares'' in 2018, in which protagonist Lazlo Strange, a scribe and

polyglot Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingualism, monolingual speakers in the World population, world's pop ...

, journeys to the Lost City of Weep. Taylor created a unique language for this world, which she weaves into the plot. ''Strange the Dreamer'' became a Michael L. Printz Honor Book as well as the 2018 Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Literature.

Works

Faeries of Dreamdark

* ''Dreamdark: Blackbringer'' (2007) * ''Dreamdark: Silksinger'' (2009)

''Daughter of Smoke and Bone''

*''

'' (2011) *'' Days of Blood and Starlight'' (2012) *''

Dreams of Gods and Monsters ''Dreams of Gods and Monsters'' is a young adult fantasy novel written by Laini Taylor. It was published on April 1, 2014 by Hachette Book Group, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. The book is the third in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone ...

'' (2014) *''Night of Cake and Puppets'' (novella) (2013)

Strange the Dreamer

*'' Strange the Dreamer'' (2017) *'' Muse of Nightmares'' (2018)

Graphic novels

* ''The Drowned'', illustrated by Jim Di Bartolo (2004)

Collections

* ''Lips Touch: Three Times'' (2009) * "Spanking Robots" in ''Fractured Fables'' (2010) * "Gentleman Send Phantoms" in ''Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction'' (2012) * "The Girl Who Woke the Dreamer" in '' My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories''(2014)

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Laini Living people 1971 births 21st-century American novelists American fantasy writers American women novelists People from Chico, California University of California, Berkeley alumni 21st-century American women writers Women science fiction and fantasy writers Novelists from California