About Holly Payne

Holly Payne is a novelist and screenwriter living in San Francisco. She is the author of two novels, The Virgin's Knot and The Sound of Blue. Published in eight countries, The Virgin's Knot received critical acclaim as a Contra Costa Times Book Club Pick 2003, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection 2002, a Border's Original Voices Book 2002 and was nominated for The First Novelist Award by the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program of Virginia Commonwealth University. Payne's second novel, The Sound of Blue, set during the Balkan conflict, chronicles the heroic journeys of three strangers who find refuge in music and each other.

Payne is on the faculty of CCA and the Academy of Art University where she teaches screenwriting and story development. She is the founder of the Skywriter Series Fiction Workshops and Skywriter Ranch, a summer fiction workshop held annually in Crested Butte, Colorado. She received a MFA from the Master of Professional Writing Program at USC. She is currently writing a third novel set in her native Amish country.