Terra Elan McVoy

Georgia Connections

• Decatur, DeKalb County

Notes of Interest

Terra Elan McVoy is the acclaimed author of two novels for young adult readers. She has been active with books and publishing throughout her life with jobs that have included managing an independent children's bookstore in Decatur and helping organize the writer's programs for the nationally recognized Decatur Book Festival. In 2010, her novel "Pure" was chosen for inclusion on the Georgia Center for the Book's inaugural list of "25 Books All Young Georgians Should Read."

Terra McVoy was born in 1974 in Tallahassee, Florida, "and was pretty much a book fan from the get-go," she writes of herself. She has been a reader and writer for as long as she can remember; she received her undergraduate degree in creative writing at St. Andrews Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, NC, and got her MFA from Florida State University. She currently serves as assistant program director of the AJC Decatur Book Festival.

Her first novel, "Pure," appeared in 2009 to praise from a variety of readers. Booklist called it "Fast, funny and very contemporary," and author Lauren Myracle said, "My heart expanded when I read it." The story centers on Tabitha, 15, who with her close friends wears purity rings as a commitment to abstinence before marriage. Everyone's life changes, however, when Tabitha confides that she has had sex with her boyfriend; it is a story with rich nuance and complexity in dealing with the actions and reactions of the novel's characters. Her second novel, "After the Kiss," was published in 2010 focuses on two young women who find they share a similar interest in a boyfriend. Both books are set in the author's neighborhood around Decatur.

Further Reading

Terra McVoy's Home Page