Morse Hamilton

Morse Hamilton teaches fiction writing and literature at Tufts University. He was born in Detroit and grew up there and in Tennessee, where his family settled in the late 50s. While a student at the University of Michigan, he won a Hopwood Award fr Writing. He holds a B.A. from Michigan and a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Mr. Hamilton started writing for children when he was the Writer-in-Residence (Bennett Fellow) at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. His first picture book, My Name Is Emily, was written in collaboration with his eldest daughter, Emily, then eight. His seventh picture book, Belching Hill, was recently published by Greenwillow.

Morse Hamilton has also written two novels for young adults, Effie's House and Yellow Blue Bus Means I Love You. The latter tells the story of Russian-born Timur Borisovich Vorobyov, alias Tim Boyd, who wins a scholarship to a prestigious New England boarding school. For his parents this is an American dream come true. Tim is not so sure. The school feels like an alien world. His clothes, his values, and his feelings all seem wrong, and he thinks of running away. Then one Saturday night at a school dance the girl of his dreams, Phoebe Sayornis, comes up to him and utters the magic words, "Yellow Blue Bus." The phrase sounds like the Russian for "I love you." Does she know what she's saying? Phoebe, so sexy, so American, becomes Tim's first love and his nemesis.

"I always begin with a character whose voice I can hear," the author says. "The plot comes afterward. Although Tim is not based on any actual boy, I am friends with several Russian emigres and their children. I've watched them cope with the opportunities and temptations of their adopted country. I hope the book makes clear that, despite Tim's trials, his intelligence and emotional balance will see him safely home-wherever his home turns out to be."

Two decades of teaching young adults, in high school and in college, have convinced the author that teenagers are smarter, saner, and more idealistic than we sometimes give them credit for. "I feel that faith confirmed by the popularity of such challenging YA novelists as Robert Cormier and Otto R. Salassi. Their examples encouraged me to aim my books at a young audience."

Mr. Hamilton is working on a new novel set on the Tennessee banks of the Mississippi River, near where he went to high school. When he isn't teaching or writing, he loves to travel, in this country and abroad. He has visited most of the fifty states, has traveled widely in Europe, and has led several student tours to the former Soviet Union. He is fluent in Italian, French, and Russian.

Mr. Hamilton's wife, Sharon, is the head of the English department at Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They have three daughters: Emily is now an elementary school teacher, Kate is in college, and Abigail is in high school. The Hamiltons live in Watertown, Massachusetts.