Tara Kelly

Tara Kelly adores variety in her life. She is “a Jill of all trades – a YA author, one-girl band, web/graphic designer, video editor and photographer”.

She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area where great music, culture, rocky beaches, winding roads, and freaks like her were plentiful.
As a little girl, she was socially clueless and ambitious. Being the dork she was, Tara started filling up at least one notebook a month with stories (most of them never got finished, but so what?). She was also a book addict. In fact, Tara had so many books, she had to sell a bunch just to create a walking path in her room. She kept a journal of all their adventures just so she wouldn’t forget what it was like to be a teen. And, yes, she still has it.

Tara Kelly graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 2004 where she earned a B.A. in Film and Digital Media. She spent the first few years after college trying out a variety of careers–video editing, teaching at an art college, graphic design for the news, even human resources. She liked them all, but there was still one dream she hadn’t pursued yet, her oldest and dearest. Writing.

In 2008, after a mailbox full of rejections, she got an agent and that agent sold her first book, Harmonic Feedback, to Henry Holt. Aside from it, she has another music-driven book called AMPLIFIED (and a sequel to it will follow).

These days Tara is enjoying life as a freelance artist in the Portland area, with her ten guitars, supercool bf, and a fluffy cat named Maestro.