 cecelia holland is an american historical novelist. ==biography== holland was born december 31, 1943, in henderson, nevada, but grew up in metuchen, new jersey, where she started writing at age 12, recording the stories she made up for her own entertainment. from the beginning, her focus was on history because "being twelve, i had precious few stories of my own. history seemed to me then, as it still does, an endless fund of material." holland attended pennsylvania state university for a year, and received her bachelor of arts degree in 1965 from connecticut college, where she took a course in creative writing and was encouraged by poet william meredith and short story writer david jackson. jackson took a novel holland wrote for his seminar to an editor at atheneum, and her first novel, firedrake, was published in 1966. she had just dropped out of graduate school at columbia university to work as a clerk at brentano's in manhattan. holland has been a full-time professional writer ever since. firedrake was actually the fourth novel she had written but the first published; jerusalem is the final, mature version of one of the earlier ones. pieces of the other two also have made their way into her published work. as of 2011, holland lived in fortuna, california, a small town in rural humboldt county, california. she has three daughters and five grandchildren. for ten years, holland taught two three-hour creative writing classes a week at pelican bay state prison in crescent city, california. she was visiting professor of english at connecticut college in 1979 and was awarded a guggenheim fellowship in 1981â1982. ==list of works== ===historical fiction=== ====novels==== *the firedrake (1966) -- after wandering across western europe, laeghaire, an irish mercenary knight, finds himself reluctantly accompanying the norman invaders at the battle of hastings in 1066. the novel spans a period of months and focusing on the historical period and laeghaire's life as a mercenary. *rakÃ³ssy (1967) -- rakÃ³ssy, a hungarian aristocrat with a wide independent streak, fights the [
1943_births 20th-century_American_novelists 20th-century_women_writers 21st-century_American_novelists 21st-century_women_writers American_children\'s_writers American_historical_novelists American_women_novelists American_women_writers Connecticut_College_alumni Guggenheim_Fellows Living_people Pennsylvania_State_University_alumni People_from_Henderson,_Nevada People_from_Metuchen,_New_Jersey Women_writers_for_children Writers_from_California Writers_from_Nevada Writers_of_historical_fiction_set_in_the_Middle_Ages