“All these nice clothes, all these jokes and drinks and food, what good does it do? Tomorrow, folk will be poor and starving and dying with a solder's pike in them, and these people will have another celebration, more nice clothes, more jokes, more gems. The suffering is forgotten or ignored - why sorrow? The war victims aren't our people. And then the wheel turns and suddenly they are our people.”

American fantasy writer

Tamora Pierce is an American fantasy writer best known for fiction for teenagers. She was born in 1954 and became widely known through her first book series, The Song of the Lioness. That series, published from 1983 to 1988, follows Alanna as she trains to become a knight and faces the tests that come with that path. Pierce is especially associated with stories centered on young heroines, and her work has often spoken to courage, growth, and the demands of finding a place in a rigid world.