Emily Whitman photo

Emily Whitman

In Emily Whitman’s novels for kids and teens, myth and magic are part of everyday life. The Turning, based on Celtic folklore, is a Junior Library Guild selection. Radiant Darkness was number one on the IndieBound Kid’s Next List. Wildwing won the Oregon Book Award and was a Bankstreet College Best Children’s Book. Emily grew up in Colorado and studied history at Harvard and UC Berkeley. She's worked in bookstores and behind library reference desks. Emily loves researching her books, whether by mining library treasures or learning to fly falcons. She lives with her family in Portland, Oregon. Come visit her at emilywhitman.com.


“I wanted it to be so pure. Nothing is ever pure.”
Emily Whitman
Read more
“for one precious moment, I believed everything she did was because of love. but now love and power are both shouting their names. I wanted it to be so pure. nothing is ever pure.”
Emily Whitman
Read more
“Soil, blood, seed- Let me draw strength from you. let it be enough.”
Emily Whitman
Read more
“You come back here, you good-for-nothing! Come help me drag these ailing bones." The old man flees toward the Lethe as fast as his rickety legs will carry him. Like an army scouring the countryside, she surges in his wake, flattening grasses and bushes as she goes. The gap narrows. "Don't you recognize me?" she hollers. "It's me, your sweetie pie!”
Emily Whitman
Read more
“An alder tree can't become an oak at will. A maple can't pick up its roots like legs, and stride, step by powerful step, along the shore to find the sun. And everything that ever said otherwise--all those years of school, and the plays and moving pictures that promise you can be someone else, something more--they were all lies.”
Emily Whitman
Read more