Diane Stanley

Diane Stanley is an American author and illustrator born in 1943 in Abilene, Texas, now based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She trained in medical illustration at Johns Hopkins after an undergraduate degree from Trinity University, and built her career on picture-book biographies and illustrated historical fiction, several co-authored with her husband, Peter Vennema, including Bard of Avon and Good Queen Bess. Her Leonardo da Vinci won the Orbis Pictus Award, and Shaka: King of the Zulus was named a New York Times Best Illustrated Book. In fiction for older readers she is known for The Silver Bowl trilogy, a fairy-tale-inflected fantasy about a servant girl who sees visions, and the historical novel Bella at Midnight. She has received two Golden Kite Awards and a Washington Post/Children's Book Guild lifetime achievement award.