Biography
At the age of nine or ten, Howe wrote a play based on the "Blondie" comic strip as well as a variety of short stories and self-published newspapers, his favorite being "the Gory Gazette," made for a self-founded club: Vampire Legion.
Howe would continue to write plays during his theater studies at Boston University, and eventually move to New York City to pursue a career as an actor and model while directing plays and working as a literary agent.
In the mid-1970s, Howe's mother-in-law encouraged him and his wife, Deborah Howe, to create a children's story based on a character the two had created while watching older Dracula movies, which at the time were played late at night on TV in the 1970s. With his wife, he created Bunnicula: A Rabbit Tale of Mystery, about a pet rabbit suspected of being a vampire. The book would go on to win more than ten Children's Choice awards, including the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award and the Nene Award, and eventually evolve into a series. Shortly after Bunnicula was published Deborah fell victim to cancer and died, inspiring the creation of The Hospital Book.
After the death of his first wife, Howe remarried and fathered a daughter, Zoey. Howe and his second wife divorced after Howe came out as gay.
In 1981, Howe began writing full-time. In addition to the Bunnicula series, Howe has written picture books, children's novels, nonfiction, adaptations of classic stories, and screenplays for movies and television. Over ten years ago, he published his first two young adult novels, The Watcher and The Misfits. The Misfits, itself inspired by his daughter Zoey's difficult experiences in middle school, was the inspiration behind GLSEN's annual No Name-Calling Week.
In 2007, James Howe was the recipient of The E.B. White Read Aloud Award for Picture Books for his book Houndsley and Catina, illustrated by Marie-Louise Gay, and published by Candlewick Press.
On September 17th, 2011, Howe married Mark Davis, a partner in the New York law firm Engel and Davis, at a home in Dorset, Vermont.
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