“Pretty hands do pretty things when pretty times arrive.”  – Song For Myla Goldberg by The Decemberists

Myla Goldberg (Scholastic Awards winner, 1989) certainly creates pretty things with pen and paper. Her bestselling first novel, Bee Season, was adapted into a film starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche and was a New York Times Notable Book for 2000, winner of the Borders New Voices Prize, and a finalist for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN award among others. She is currently on tour promoting her new book, The False Friend, and will be visiting New Orleans, LA; St. Paul, MN; and Bridgewater, NJ in the coming months.

Myla grew up in Laurel, Maryland where she attended Eleanor Roosevelt High School. She majored in English at Oberlin College. After graduating in 1993, she spent a year writing and teaching in Prague, the city that provided inspiration for her book of essays, Time’s Magpie. She then moved to Brooklyn, New York where she still lives with her husband Jason Little, a cartoonist, and their two daughters.

Myla has also written several essays, a children’s book (Catching the Moon), and three short stories (That’ll Be Two Dollars and Fifty Cents Please, The Commemorative, and Going for the Orange Julius).

Among her many talents, Myla also plays the accordion and banjo and sings in the Brooklyn-based punk band, The Walking Hellos. Check out their music as well as The Decemberists’ Song for Myla Goldberg, which makes a mouthful of allusions to Bee Season!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MYLA!