Gloria Whelan is an American poet, short story writer, and novelist known primarily for children's and young adult fiction. She won the annual National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2000 for the novel Homeless Bird. She also won the 2013 Tuscany Prize for Catholic Fiction with her short story entitled What World Is This? and the work became the title for the independent publisher's 2013 collection of short stories. Whelan's books include many historical fiction novels, including a trilogy set on Mackinac Island and a quartet series set in communist Russia. Whelan is also the author of short stories which have appeared in The Ontario Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Gettysburg Review, and other literary quarterlies. Her collection of short stories, Playing with Shadows, was published by the Illinois Press. Her stories have appeared in several anthologies and in Prize Stories: the O. Henry Awards. Whelan is, according to Liz Rosenberg in the Chicago Tribune, "an accomplished, graceful, and intelligent writer."
Early life and education
Gloria was the daughter of William Rewoldt and Hildegarde Kilwinski Rewoldt, born 1923 in Detroit. She read many books as a girl, sometimes dictated stories that her baby sitter transcribed, and wrote poetry. She edited the high school newspaper. She earned the bachelor's degree in 1945 and the Master of Social Work in 1948 at the University of Michigan.
In 1972, weary of the hectic pace of life in Detroit, the Whelans moved to a cabin on oxbow Lake in the woods of northern Michigan, outside the small town of Mancelona. Their peace was soon disturbed, however, by an oil company that intended to drill on their property. Since the Whelans did not own the mineral rights to the land, the company razed three acres and sank an unsuccessful well, after which it departed. The experience inspired Whelan to write a children's novel about a young boy who worked on an oilrig. It was published as A Clearing in the Forest in 1978.
That was her first book. Whelan was almost fifty-five when Putnam's published A Clearing in the Forest in July 1978. In nearly thirty-five years since then, she has written fifty-two books of fiction for children and young adults. Many have been set in rural northern Michigan, where she may be considered a regional author, but her settings include Africa, China, Vietnam, India, Czarist and communist Russia. Listening for Lions is set in 1919 British East Africa. Whelan also writes short stories and poetry for adults. Her stories have been published in numerous literary quarterlies and anthologies including "Prize Stories: O'Henry Awards. Illinois Press published a collection of her stories, "Playing with Shadows" In 2013 Wayne State University published a collection of stories and a novella, "Living Together," which Joyce Carol Oates called "elegantly composed," and Nicholas Delbanco called, "Pitch perfect," and "A pleasure to read."
