Eileen Holland was born in Victoria, B.C. She spent a happy childhood camping, hiking and skiing. Her parents helped Eileen develop a love for learning, an awareness of detail, and the joy of humour. As a child, she felt her heart ache at the beauty of nature, poured over classification books identifying shells, butterflies, birds and flowers, read endlessly, and spent many blissful moments dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.

Eileen’s grade 7 and 9 teachers are responsible for discovering that she could write. When Eileen’s son Matthew was 6, he told her, “You should write children’s books, Mommy!” Years later, her daughter Kelly enjoyed discussing what worked and didn’t work in the stories her mom wrote. Eileen was a finalist in the 2002 B.C. Festival of the Arts, and spent a week with 9 other writers learning children’s writing skills from Andrea Spalding.

Eileen taught for 33 years in Campbell River, Vancouver and Coquitlam. She became known as both “the writing teacher” and “the funny teacher” at Coquitlam’s Ranch Park Elementary, where she taught for over 20 years. Eileen was honoured by Coquitlam School District for years of creative writing classes focused on social responsibility. She lives in Coquitlam with her husband Wayne and their puppy Sawyer, a.k.a. Dougie Dog.