Holly Goldberg Sloan

Holly Goldberg Sloan

Holly Goldberg at Willard in 1971

Holly Goldberg was born in Michigan in 1958 and spent a peripatetic childhood traveling the world with her family. Her youth was spent in places as diverse as California, the Netherlands, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Washington D.C. and Oregon. After graduating from Wellesley College she moved to Los Angeles, selling her first screenplay at the age of 24. For the next ten years she worked in commercial advertising as a production assistant, then a script supervisor, a producer, and finally as a commercial director. She wrote numerous family films, including the Walt Disney feature “Angels in the Outfield,” and the Universal Pictures comedy “Made in America.” She both wrote and directed the “The Big Green” and the children’s film “Heidi 4 Paws.”

In 2011 Sloan published her debut young adult novel, I’ll Be There, which won numerous awards. Her second novel, Counting by 7s, also won wide acclaim and is read in classrooms around the globe. She’s since written two more children’s books, Just Call My Name and Appleblossom the Possum. Fittingly for someone who spent her childhood traveling the world, Sloan’s books are currently in print from thirty-two publishers in twenty-three languages.

Sloan spent her seventh grade year at Willard, where she was unforgettably impressed by English teacher Addie Holsing. “She changed my life by letting my class have a daily newspaper,” Sloan recounts on her website. “I will remember that class and Addie until my last breath.”