Background

Amelia Holt Atwater-Rhodes was born on April 16, 1984, in Silver Spring, Maryland. Her family subsequently moved to Concord, Massachusetts.

Her mother, Susan, serves as a vice-principal at Acton- Boxborough High School, while her father, William, is an econometrician employed as a public policy consultant.

Education

Atwater-Rhodes attended Peabody Middle School and Concord Carlisle High School. Then she entered the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Later, she studied at the University of Massachusetts Boston and then Northeastern University.

Career

Atwater-Rhodes began writing in earnest after completing the fifth grade in 1995. She found time after school, in the middle of the night, or whenever inspiration struck. Sometimes she would write sixty pages at a sitting, and while composing her first published novel, she balanced a tiger Beanie Baby on her head and took inspiration from the singer Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill album, listening to several tracks over and over. Begun in her middle-school cafeteria, she completed In the Forests of the Night, the story of a 300-year-old vampire named Risika who was once a teenager in colonial Concord, in 1997.

With the completion of the novel, Atwater-Rhodes began looking for a literary agent. When her eighth-grade class went to tour their future high school before moving in the next year as freshmen, Atwater-Rhodes met Tom Hart, an English teacher who was representing the humanities department. Recognizing Atwater-Rhodes from his own son's class a few years before, Hart asked the budding author how she was doing. A friend started bragging that Atwater-Rhodes wrote songs, poetry, and books, and was even trying to gel a book published. Hart, having taught Atwater-Rhodes’ sister Rachel a few years earlier and remembering what a good writer she was, offered to read Atwater-Rhodes’ book and give her suggestions to where she should send it. After reading it, he signed on as her agent and sent the novel to Delacorte Press, a division of Random House.

While celebrating her fourteenth birthday, Atwater-Rhodes received a phone call from Hart telling her that Delacorte had accepted the novel for publication. But a contract was only the beginning of a long and complicated revision process that took this debut novel through a dozen drafts before publication. The young novelist also relied on her built-in support group, her group of friends who looked for mistakes inconsistency and characterization.

In 2003, Atwater-Rhodes, who so far had published novels about vampires, took a change of course and began a series of books based on a world of shapeshifters that Atwater-Rhodes would call, The Kiesha'ra Series. After completing The Kiesha'ra Series, Atwater-Rhodes released the first book of her the Den of Shadows series. Her new series called The Maeve’ra Trilogy was published between 2014 and 2016. Her first and second book of the trilogy for adults, the Mancer trilogy, appeared in March 2016 and the third followed in 2018. Amelia is now teaching Special Education courses at Concord-Carlisle High School.

Achievements

• Young adult author Amelia Atwater- Rhodes has proved herself a publishing phenomenon. At age fifteen, she found herself a literary celebrity after the publication of her vampire novel In the Forests of the Night in 1999. The novel was a huge success, gaining the attention of millions of young readers.
  
  A resident of Concord, Massachusetts, she shares literary fame with a host of big names from the American literary canon who were also once residents in that town, including Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Louisa May Alcott, yet she shares a similarity only with Alcott.
  
  In June 2011, Amelia was recognized by The Concord-Carlisle Teachers Association as an alums who had "outstanding accomplishments." Almost a million and a half copies of her titles have been sold worldwide so far, and she’s won numerous awards, including the School Library Journal’s Best Book of the Year.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Promises To Keep

    (The compendium of creations (SingleEarth, the Bruja guild...)

    2010
  • Poison Tree

    (The rich stew of the author's creations - vampires, shape...)

    2012
  • Shattered Mirror

    (As seventeen-year-old Sarah, daughter of a powerful line ...)

    2001
  • Falcondance

    (Nicias has never felt completely at home among the avians...)

    2005
  • Of the Divine: Mancer: Book Two

    (Henna is one of the most powerful sorcerers in the Order ...)

    2017
  • Hawksong

    (Danica Shardae is an avian shapeshifter, and the golden h...)

    2004
  • Snakecharm

    (Zane Cobriana, Cobra shapeshifter, thanks the gods every ...)

    2004
  • Token of Darkness

    (Cooper Blake has everything going for him--until he wakes...)

    2010
  • Wolfcry

    (Oliza Shardae Cobriana is heir to Wyvern's Court, home of...)

    2006
  • Midnight Predator

    (Though she was once a happy teenager with a wonderful fam...)

    2003
  • Bloodwitch

    (The first book in an urban fantasy series about loyalty, ...)

    2014
  • Of the Abyss: Mancer, Book One

    (After decades of strife, peace has finally been achieved ...)

    2016
  • Persistence of Memory

    (Sixteen-year-old Erin Misrahe just wants to be like every...)

    2008
  • The Den of Shadows Quartet

    (Three hundred years ago Risika had a family - a brother a...)

    2009
  • Demon in My View

    (Though nobody at her high school knows it, Jessica is a p...)

    2000
  • In the Forests of the Night

    (By day, Risika sleeps in a shaded room in Concord, Massac...)

    1999
  • All Just Glass

    (Sarah Vida has given up everything for love. From a legen...)

    2011
  • Wyvernhail

    (Hai has also been an outsider. With a falcon mother and a...)

    2007
  • The Shapeshifters: The Kiesha'ra of the Den of Shadows 2010

Religion

In 2013, Atwater-Rhodes converted to Judaism.

Personality

At age three Atwater-Rhodes was making up elaborate stories about a stuffed animal of hers named Meow Stripe, who ruled the upside-down world of Catland. The drawings she made to accompany her stories were odd enough to prompt one of her teachers into thinking she had a learning disability. From there, she became interested in fantasy and futuristic science fiction before turning to vampires.

Amelia's non-writing hobbies are eclectic, and cover everything from rather domestic pastimes like cross-stitch and cooking to aquarium keeping, playing piano, gardening, carpentry, Harley-Davidsons, driving, and arguing - there are few things she enjoys more than a good debate with someone who knows how to argue, which might have something to do with a best friend who works in politics. She loves to learn, so if she has down-time and nothing to do, it is not at all unusual to find Amelia pouring over some book, website or video designed to teach me some new skill, from belly dancing to JavaScript.

Quotes from others about the person

• "Almost a million and a half copies of her titles have been sold worldwide so far, and she’s won numerous awards, including the School Library Journal’s Best Book of the Year. Atwater-Rhodes has also found time to earn two college degrees, and currently teaches at CCHS."

Interests

• Cross-stitch, playing piano, gardening, cooking, carpentry, debate, learning new things

Connections

Amelia was married to Mandi McCrensky on July 4, 2010. Their divorce was finalized on November 1, 2015. Amelia is now in a relationship with Shira Gaudet.

Amelia has a daughter, Rebecca "Becks" Atwater-Rhodes and a son, Michael Atwater-Rhodes.

Father:

William Atwater-Rhodes

Mother:

Susan Atwater-Rhodes

Spouse:

Mandi McCrensky

Daughter:

Rebecca "Becks" Atwater-Rhodes

Born in 2014

Son:

Michael Atwater-Rhodes

Born in 2018

Partner:

Shira Gaudet

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields In response to the escalating need for up-to-date information on writers, Contemporary Authors New Revision Series brings researchers the most recent data on the worlds most-popular authors.
  2010