Holly Tappen

Holly Tappen is a writer and a painter. On most days, you can find her in her studio in the California Building in NE Minneapolis, swearing at the computer, or kicking back and eating Smarties. Then she digs in again. Her influences are Picasso and Da Vinci, so she will be the world’s first Abstract Realist as soon as she figures out what that looks like.

Holly has written seven plays and has seen four of them produced on stage in Atlanta. She wrote her full-length memoir, “Force of Nature,” which follows the confrontation between the cast of the play, “Hair,” and the Ku Klux Klan. Her work appears in the literary journal, “Jewels of San Fedele,” culled from the writers’ retreat in Italy with mentors Kaylie Jones and Judy Mandel. Four short stories have been published in “American Writers Review.” She wrote and delivered keynote speeches for the National Organization of Women. Her next completed book explores the idea of the nest stage in human evolution.

She went to Emory University a million years ago, and since they had no creative writing program at the time, she majored in Philosophy. Although she works toward having art in all aspects of her life, the IRS does not appreciate this. And she has a cat.