Elise Hooper

Elise Hooper's novels hand the lead to women the record mostly walked past. A New Englander by upbringing, she wrote for television and online news outlets, took a master's degree, and teaches high school English and history in Seattle, where she lives with her husband and two daughters. Her first book, The Other Alcott (2017), a Washington Book Award nominee, follows May Alcott, Louisa's youngest sister and a painter in her own right. Fast Girls (2020) traces three runners on the 1936 United States women's Olympic team: Betty Robinson, who won the 100 metres at the 1928 Games and was gravely hurt in a plane crash before fighting her way back; Louise Stokes, from a town outside Boston; and Helen Stephens, raised poor on a Missouri farm. Angels of the Pacific (2022) draws on the American army nurses known as the Angels of Bataan and on Filipina women in the resistance during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. The Library of Lost Dollhouses appeared in 2025.