Laurence Michael Yep (; born June 14, 1948) is an American writer. He is known for his

children's books A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

, having won the

Newbery Honor Newbery is a surname. People *Chantelle Newbery (born 1977), Australian Olympic diver *David Newbery (born 1943), British economist *Eduardo Newbery (1878–1908), Argentine odontologist and aerostat pilot *Francis Newbery (disambiguation), seve ...

twice for his ''Golden Mountain'' series. In 2005, he received the biennial

Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal The Children's Literature Legacy Award (known as the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal until 2018) is a prize awarded by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to writers or illustrat ...

for his career contribution to American children's literature.

Life, education, and career

Yep was born in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, California, in

Chinatown A Chinatown () is an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Austr ...

to Thomas (Gim Lew) Yep and Franche Lee Yep. His father was a first-generation American born in China who had moved to San Francisco as a boy and grown up with an Irish friend in his neighborhood. His mother was a second-generation

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...

, was born in

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

and raised in

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the ...

where her family ran a

Chinese laundry Laundry refers to the washing of clothing and other textiles, and, more broadly, their drying and ironing as well. Laundry has been part of history since humans began to wear clothes, so the methods by which different cultures have dealt with t ...

. After struggling through the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion ...

, Yep's family moved to a multicultural but predominantly

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslav ...

neighborhood.Goodreads author biography https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14199.Laurence_Yep Yep grew up working in the family grocery store, where he recalls learning early on "how to observe and listen to people, how to relate to others. It was good training for a writer." Yep was named by his older brother Thomas, who had just been studying the biography of Saint Lawrence for school. He spent his early childhood commuting from his neighborhood to a Catholic school in Chinatown for Chinese children, where he was often made fun of by the mostly bilingual students for only knowing how to speak English. Not until high school when Yep attended a less segregated Catholic school did he confront white American culture in person, having grown up among Black and Chinese kids. Although he had always been interested in science, at St. Ignatius College Preparatory, he also became interested in literature and creative writing. Yep published his first story in a

science fiction magazine A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard-copy periodical format or on the Internet. Science fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, nove ...

at the age of 18 while still in

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper second ...

. His English teacher, a

Jesuit priest , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders = ...

, motivated him to submit his story to magazines until it got published if he wanted to get an A grade. This experience inspired Yep to first consider what a career in writing might be like, even though he had always been fascinated with machines and wanted to become a chemist. Yep graduated from St. Ignatius College Preparatory in 1966. His decision to become a writer did not come until he entered college at

Marquette University Marquette University () is a private Jesuit research university in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Established by the Society of Jesus as Marquette College on August 28, 1881, it was founded by John Martin Henni, the first Bishop of the diocese of Milwa ...

. There he became friends with a

literary magazine A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters ...

editor, Joanne Ryder. She introduced him to

children's literature Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

and later encouraged him to write a book for children while she was working at

Harper & Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins based in New York City. History J. & J. Harper (1817–1833) James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishin ...

. The result was his first science fiction novel for teens entitled ''Sweetwater'', published by Harper & Row in 1973. After two years at Marquette, Yep transferred to

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

where he earned a BA in 1970. He later earned a PhD in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

at the

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

Writing career

Growing up, Yep often felt torn between mainstream American culture and his Chinese roots, a theme he has often written about. A great deal of his work involves characters feeling alienated or not fitting into their environment, something Yep has said he struggled with since childhood: "I was too American to fit into

, and too Chinese to fit in anywhere else." During his writing career, Yep also taught creative writing and Asian-American studies at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

and

UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the Un ...

. Yep's most notable collection of works is the ''Golden Mountain Chronicles'', documenting the fictional Young family from 1849 in China to 1995 in America. Two of the series are Newbery Honor Books, or runners-up for the annual

Newbery Medal The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contr ...

: '' Dragonwings'' (Harper & Row, 1975) and '' Dragon's Gate'' (HarperCollins, 1993). '' Dragonwings'' won the

Phoenix Award The Phoenix Award annually recognizes one English-language children's book published twenty years earlier that did not then win a major literary award. It is named for the mythical bird phoenix that is reborn from its own ashes, signifying the bo ...

from the

Children's Literature Association The Children's Literature Association (ChLA) is a non-profit association, based in the United States, of scholars, critics, professors, students, librarians, teachers, and institutions dedicated to studying children's literature.Margaret W. Denman- ...

in 1995, recognizing the best children's book published twenty years earlier that did not win a major award. It won the Carter G. Woodson Book Award in 1976, and has been adapted as a play under its original title. Another of the Chronicles, ''Child of the Owl'' won the

Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

for children's fiction in 1977. (''The Rainbow People'', Yep's collection of short stories based on Chinese folktales and legends, was a Horn Book runner-up in 1989.) Yep wrote two other notable series, ''Chinatown Mysteries'' and ''

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as ...

'' (1982 to 1992). The latter is an adaptation of

Chinese mythology Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature in the geographic area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology includes many varied myths from regional and cultural traditions. Much of t ...

as four fantasy novels. In 2005 the professional children's librarians awarded Yep the biennial

, which recognizes a living

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complica ...

whose books, published in the United States, have made "a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children". The committee noted that "Yep explores the dilemma of the cultural outsider" with "attention to the complexity and conflict within and across cultures" and it cited four works in particular: '' Dragonwings'', '' The Rainbow People'', ''The Khan's Daughter'', and the autobiographical ''The Lost Garden''. A live-action/CGI TV movie of '' The Tiger's Apprentice'', adapted by

David Magee David Magee (born 1962) is an American screenwriter who was nominated for a 2004 Academy Award and a Golden Globe for '' Finding Neverland''. Along with Simon Beaufoy, he wrote the screenplay for '' Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day'' starring Fran ...

, was being developed by

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, ...

until it was cancelled after

stopped developing live-action projects. In March 2019,

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest ...

announced an animated film adaptation of the book with a script by Magee and a release date of February 11, 2022.

Personal life

Yep married Joanne Ryder in 1984. They live in

Pacific Grove, California Pacific Grove is a coastal city in Monterey County, California, in the United States. The population at the 2020 census was 15,090. Pacific Grove is located between Point Pinos and Monterey. Pacific Grove has numerous Victorian-era houses, s ...

Works

;''Golden Mountain Chronicles'' As of 2011 there are ten published chronicles spanning 1835 to the present. Here they are ordered by the fictional history and the year of the narrative follows the title; none of the titles includes a date. # ''The Serpent's Children'', set in 1849 (1984) # ''Mountain Light'', 1855 (1985) # ''Dragon's Gate'', 1867 (1993) # ''The Traitor'', 1885 (2003) # '' Dragonwings'', 1903 (1975) # ''Dragon Road'', 1939 (2007); originally ''The Red Warrior'' # ''Child of the Owl'', 1960 (1977) # ''Sea Glass'', 1970 (1979) # ''Thief of Hearts'', 1995 (1995) # ''Dragons of Silk'', 1835–2011 (2011) ;

Dragon (fantasy series) The ''Dragon'' series is a tetralogy of fantasy novels by American author Laurence Yep. Yep had already written several books including the Newbery Honor novel '' Dragonwings'' by 1980, when, after undertaking careful research, he decided to adapt ...

# '' Dragon of the Lost Sea'' # '' Dragon Steel'' # '' Dragon Cauldron'' # '' Dragon War'' ;Star Fisher series # ''The Star Fisher'' # ''Dream Soul'' (sequel to ''The Star Fisher'') ;Chinatown Mysteries # ''The Case of the Goblin Pearls'' # ''The Case of the Lion Dance'' # ''The Case of the Firecrackers'' ;City trilogy # ''City of Fire'' # ''City of Ice'' # ''City of Death'' ;The Tiger's Apprentice # '' The Tiger's Apprentice: Book One'' # ''Tiger's Blood: Book Two'' # ''Tiger Magic: Book Three'' ;Ribbons (untitled group of books) # ''Ribbons'' # ''The Cook's Family'' (sequel to ''Ribbons'') # ''The Amah'' (companion novel) # ''Angelfish'' (sequel to ''The Cook's Family'') ;Later, Gator (untitled group of books) # ''Later, Gator'' # '' Cockroach Cooties'' # ''Skunk Scout'' ;Mia St. Clair ('' American Girl'' series) # ''Mia'' # ''Bravo, Mia!'' ;Isabelle series # ''Isabelle'' # ''Designs by Isabelle'' # ''To the Stars, Isabelle'' ;Nonfiction # ''American Dragons: Twenty-five Asian American Voices'' (editor) # ''The Lost Garden'' (autobiography, part of the ''In my own Words'' series) ;Picture books # ''The Magic Paintbrush'' # ''The Dragon Prince: A Chinese Beauty and the Beast Tale'' # ''The Butterfly Boy'' # ''The Shell Woman and the King: a Chinese folktale'' # ''The Khan's Daughter: a Mongolian folktale'' # ''The Ghost Fox'' # ''The Boy Who Swallowed Snakes'' # ''The Man who Tricked a Ghost'' # ''The City of Dragons'' ;Other books # ''Seademons'' # ''Tongues of Jade'' # ''The Rainbow People'' # ''Sweetwater'' # ''Hiroshima: A Novella'' # ''The Earth Dragon Awakes: the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906'' # '' Lady of Ch'iao Kuo: Warrior of the South'' (part of The Royal Diaries series) # ''The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung: A Chinese Miner'' (part of the '' My Name Is America'' series) # ''Spring Pearl: The Last Flower'' (part of the '' Girls of Many Lands'' series) # ''The Imp that Ate My Homework'' # ''When the Circus Came to Town'' # ''Kind Hearts and Gentle Monsters'' # ''The Mark Twain Murders'' # ''The Tom Sawyer Fires'' # '' Shadow Lord'' (a ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vario ...

'' novel) # ''Monster Makers, Inc.'' ;Plays # ''The Age of Wonders'' # ''Dragonwings'' # ''Pay the Chinaman'' (one-act) # ''Fairy Bones'' (one-act) # ''HI''

References

External links

* *
The Dragon Lode: "Conversations with Yep and Soentpiet – Negotiation Between Cultures"
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yep, Laurence 1948 births American children's writers American dramatists and playwrights of Chinese descent American dramatists and playwrights American historical novelists American male dramatists and playwrights American male novelists American novelists of Chinese descent Carter G. Woodson Book Award winners Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal winners Living people Newbery Honor winners People from Pacific Grove, California Writers from San Francisco Chinese-American culture in San Francisco