Cynthia Hand (Creative Writing), a New York Times bestselling author of several books for teens, also writes the Jane books with fellow authors Jodi Meadows and Brodi Ashton. Her book “My Lady Jane” is currently streaming as a hit television show on AmazonPrime, photo by Priscilla Grover
“I love teaching as much as I love writing. We will read a story by Joyce Carol Oates, for example, and then the students will carefully imitate the form of that story – the way a painter might try to learn by imitating Van Gogh. I always do the exercises with them. I get new story ideas and it keeps me on my toes.”
Alum and faculty member Cynthia Hand (MFA, creative writing, 2003), featured in Boise State’s newsletter The Update this week, is a New York Times bestselling author and an Eastern Idaho native. She has earned legions of fans with her acclaimed novels, including the “Unearthly” trilogy, “The Last Time We Say Goodbye,” “The Afterlife of Holly Chase,” “The How & The Why” and “With You All The Way.”
Hand also co-authored a popular young adult series, The Lady Janie books, written with fellow authors Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows. The genre-bending novels reimagine figures like Lady Jane Grey, Jane Eyre, Mary, Queen of Scots and Mary Shelley with humor, magic, meet-ups between fictional and historical characters, plot turns and spirit.
Hand’s recent successes include the adaptation of “My Lady Jane” – based on Lady Jane Grey, the young woman who was queen of England for nine days before being executed – into a series streaming on Amazon Prime.