Gloria Houston

About me:

This is Dr. Houston's official site and is managed by her daughter, Diane. If you are interested in having Dr. Houston present at your school, conference, or workshop please e-mail here and she and/or her agent or business manager will respond.

Gloria Houston, Ph. D., Author and Writing Consultant
Dr. Gloria Houston is internationally known as an educator and an author of multi-award winning, best selling books for young readers, as well as a writer of textbooks and other teaching materials. However, she typifies herself as “first, last and always, a teacher.” With a Bachelor’s Degree from Appalachian State University, Boone, NC, and following years of work in public and private schools in grades k-12 in North Carolina, Texas, Louisiana and Florida, she earned a Masters Degree and Ph. D. at the University of South Florida, Tampa. At USF, she was a professor and held an appointed Author-in-Residence position. There, she was the founding coordinator of Suncoast Young Authors Conference, one of more than fifty young writers conferences she has implemented nationally. She also founded the USF Young Writers Camp and the Center for the Study of Child Writing.

As an educator, she is designated as a Distinguished Educator by the International Reading Association, which included an invitation to write two chapters in Distinguished Educators on Reading: Contributions that Have Shaped Effective Literacy Education, published once each decade. She won the National Excellence in Literacy Education award for her writing curriculum “Tell Me a Story” for IBM Educational Systems and was appointed read all writing research data to date and to write the support paper for their “Writing to Write” program, distributed internationally. Appalachian State has named her a Distinguished Alumni and a member of the Rhododendron Society, for her outstanding contributions to education. She sits on the international Governing Board for Computers Across the World (CPAW), with its stated goal of attaining peace through communication.

Houston in listed in Who’s Who in America, Outstanding Women of the Twenty-First Century, Who’s Who in the Southwest, Who’s Who in Education, International Who’s Who of Authors, Something about the Author, Contemporary Authors, and other references. As an author of critically acclaimed novels and picture books for young readers, her books have won and been listed on more than forty awards and awards lists, with one international award. In fall, 2010, her picture book honoring all librarians/media specialists, Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile (HarperCollins), will be released. Her short story about a music teacher, “Ms. McAdoo’s Christmas Guests,” will also appear in the fall release of James Ransome’s anthology, An American Christmas, a Christy Ottaviano Book from Henry Holt Books for Young Readers. Ms. Houston has all the ornaments from Ms. McAdoo’s tree, which were gifts from her students when she was an elementary music teacher in Texas.

Her earlier books have several awards. The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree (Dial, 1988, Puffin 1996) was on the annual Publisher’s Weekly Best Seller List and was selected by P W as “most likely to become a classic. It was a “Best Book of the Decade” from the American Library Association, as well as other honors. Published in Japanese, Korean, Swedish, and in English by Fitzhenry and Whitesides in the UK, the book enjoys a worldwide audience. Adapted as a musical, an opera, and a ballet, productions are presented annually throughout the United States. One of the three adaptations as a screenplay won the Spoleto Festival Screenwriter’s Prize.

My Great Aunt Arizona (Harper, 1992, HarperTrophy, 1994) was selected as a Smithsonian Treasure, the Family Channel’s Best Books List, the IRA Teachers and Children’s Choices lists, the NCTE Best Books List and others. In 2007, a North Carolina ballet company premiered the ballet.

Mountain Valor (Philomel 1997, Paperstar, 2000) was selected as Publisher’s Weekly’s choice for the Newbery Medal, which it did not win. It is currently being adapted as a musical.

Bright Freedom’s Song: A Story of the Underground Railroad (Harcourt, 2000) was named as a Bank Street School’s Best Book. Both Mountain Valor and Bright Freedom’s Song won the North Carolina History Association/ American Association of University Women’s Young Readers Award.

The Littlejim series (Philomel, 1989’; Bright Mountain Books, 2006) have won numerous awards, have been adapted as musicals, including an adaptation by Jason Rhyne, who included his adaptation in his portfolio for the Jonathan Landon Playwriting Award in NYC, and are included in social studies curricula nationwide.

Littlejim’s Dream’s (Harcourt, 1998) won the Silver medal from School Librarians International.

During twenty-five years presenting workshops and lectures at conferences internationally, nationally and regionally as author, writing teacher, literature and writing consultant, she has also served as author-in-schools, keynote speaker, and as writing consultant in school systems and professional organizations throughout the nation and in Europe. She has been writing consultant to national and international businesses and corporations, including IBM, Whitehall and KFC.

Her writing textbook/handbook for teachers’ desks, How Writing Works: Imposing Organizational Structure within the Writing Process (Allyn and Bacon/Longman, 2003) has been a best seller to budding writers as well as to teachers and future teachers. Portions of the textbook have been field tested on 3 1⁄2 million students,pre-k-8, with special students and foreign speakers. She has an arts across the curriculum methods textbook under contract with Allyn and Bacon/Longman.

Appalachian State University recently requested that her papers and manuscripts be placed in the Special Collections, where she was invited to speak at the dedication at the new Carole Belk Library. Both the Kerlin Collection at the University of Minnesota and the Special Collections at the University of South Florida Library have also requested her papers, but Dr. Houston chose ASU because of its location and its sensitivity to the southern Appalachian culture. A sculpture in the Commons of the new Belk Library at ASU features a child reading Houston’s book, My Great Aunt Arizona (HarperCollins, 2002), appropriate in that both Houston and Arizona Hughes are alumni. In 2007, Houston was appointed to the Carole Belk Distinguished Lectureship there.

Currently, Houston lives in western North Carolina. Working on several projects with Appalachian State University, the NC Library System, and with southeastern regional school systems allows Houston to bring some of her ideas, successfully implemented throughout the nation and the world, to her home region.

After a nine year struggle with Environmental Illness, specifically involving an acute sensitivity to hydrocarbons (petrochemicals—most fragrance products, lotions, hairsprays, and cleaning chemicals; tobacco smoke, chlorine and formaldehyde), her health is stable enough that she can again offer her years of training and experience to a wider audience, if accommodations to these chemicals are made.

For further information:


Contact here or at authorhouston@yahoo.com


See: Something about the Author, Vol. 138 Contemporary Authors, Vol. 112

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