Jane Kurtz spent most of her childhood in Ethiopia and now lives
in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where she teaches in the English
department at the University of North Dakota, writes books and
magazine articles and a weekly column about children's books, and
speaks around the region. Of all the things she writes, she loves
children's books best and has sold nine of them in the last four years.
Fire on the Mountain (Simon & Schuster, 1994) and Pulling the Lion's Tail
(Simon & Schuster, 1995) are re-tellings
of folk tales she heard as a child in Ethiopia.
Miro in the Kingdom of the Sun (Houghton, 1996) is a re-telling of an Inca
folktale. Trouble (Harcourt, spring 1997) is set in Eritrea, one of the
newest countries of the world. Only a Pigeon
(Simon & Schuster, spring 1997) is set in the contemporary city of
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She also has books coming out that are set in
places like North Carolina, Ghana, and the Sudan, and she's interested
in life all around the world (and inside it).
As for volcanoes, Jane Kurtz used to love the obsidian she and her
sisters picked up on Ethiopian mountain slopes to play with and she
has always been fascinated with lava and things like that,
but she never knew very much about volcanoes--really--until she
started doing research for these stories. She recommends writing
volcano stories as a way to learn a lot!
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