James Howe

James Howe (born August 2, 1946) is an American children's writer who has written more than 79 juvenile and young adult fiction books. He is best known for the Bunnicula series about a vampire rabbit that sucks the juice out of vegetables.

Biography

Howe was born in Oneida, New York. 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. Of the latter his favorite is The Gory Gazette which he made for a self-founded club, Vampire Legion.

Howe continued to write plays during his theater studies at Boston University, and eventually moved 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 TVs. With his wife, he created Bunnicula: A Rabbit Tale of Mystery, about a pet rabbit suspected of being a vampire. The book went on to win more than ten Children's Choice awards, including the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award and the Nene Award, and eventually evolved into a series. Ten months before Bunnicula was published Deborah died, inspiring the creation of The Hospital Book.

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. In 1997, he published his first young adult novel, The Watcher. The Misfits, itself inspired by his child’s difficult experiences in middle school, was the inspiration behind GLSEN's annual No Name-Calling Week.

After the death of his first wife, Howe remarried and had one child. Howe and his second wife divorced after Howe came out as gay. 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 17, 2011, Howe married Mark Davis, a lawyer.

Howe was a consulting producer for the animated adaptation of the books.