Maggie Tokuda-Hall
“It is a sacred task to share truth with children, and it’s the greatest honor and responsibility of my life to do just that through the power of story. All kids have the powerful imaginations at their dsiposal, and it is my profound joy to try and inspire them to use those powerful imaginations, and to inspire new ways of thinking.”
Biography
Maggie Tokuda-Hall has an MFA in creative writing from USF, and BA in art from Scripps College. She’s the author of numerous award winning, best-selling children’s and young adult books including Love in the Library, The Mermaid the Witch and The Sea duology, Squad, and The Worst Ronin. She has been called “… one of the most unflinching voices in contemporary genre literature.” Her writing has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, Electric Literature, Densho, and more.
A longtime children’s bookseller, Maggie has been involved with children’s literature and education since graduating college, having worked as a creative writing tutor, private book club officiator, literary agent’s assistant, Chronicle Books marketing manager, Apple iBooks partner manager, and now as a full time author and speaker. She reached national attention when she publicly refused to accept a licensing offer for her book, Love in the Library, from Scholastic, who demanded a series of edits to her author’s note that whitewashed the history of Japanese American incarceration during WWII.
Maggie’s priority and guiding principle for all her work is to tell the truth. Whether it’s the difficult and disturbing history of state sanctioned violence in the USA, or the emotional truth of being a teenaged girl coming of age under rape culture, Maggie’s work seeks to meet children where they are, and to ask them questions they may not yet know the answers to.
Maggie is a founding member and national leader of Authors Against Book Bans. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, children, and objectively perfect dog.
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