About
EMMA WALTON HAMILTON is a best-selling and award-winning author, editor, stage, television and podcast writer/producer and arts educator.
Together with her mother, Julie Andrews, she has co-authored over thirty books for children and adults, nine of which have been on the New York Times best-seller list, including The Very Fairy Princess series (#1 NY Times Bestseller) and most recently, Andrews’ second memoir, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years. A Bridport Prize-winning poet, Emma recently published a poetry collection entitled Door to Door (Andrews McMeel Publishing) and her book for parents and caregivers, Raising Bookworms: Getting Kids Reading for Pleasure and Empowerment, premiered as a #1 best-seller on Amazon.com in the literacy category and won a Parent’s Choice Gold Medal.
Emma was a two-time Emmy Award nominee for her role as Executive Producer and Writer for Julie’s Greenroom, a children’s television program about the performing arts created for Netflix, starring Julie Andrews and co-produced by the Jim Henson Company. Emma is also a Grammy Award-winning voice-over artist, having provided voicing for numerous audiobooks, including Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies (2010 Grammy Award, Best Spoken Word Album for Children), as well as numerous radio, television, theater and industrial spots. Currently, she and her mother co-host and co-produce Julie’s Library, a story-time podcast for family audiences produced by American Public Media.
A faculty member for Stony Brook University’s MFA in Creative Writing and Literature, Emma teaches all forms of children’s book writing and serves as Director of their Children’s Literature Fellows program and annual Children’s Literature Conference, as well as Executive Director of the Young Artists and Writers Project (YAWP), an interdisciplinary writing program for middle and high school students. A former actress and theatre director, Emma was a co-founder of Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, where she served as co-Artistic Director and Director of Education and Programming for Young Audiences for 17 years.
Independently, Emma offers home-study courses and other products and resources for writers at her website, EmmaWaltonHamilton.com. She is also the co-creator of Picture Book Summit, the world-class, annual online conference for picture book writers, and The Complete Picture Book Submissions System. An accomplished public speaker, she regularly addresses conferences, schools, universities and other groups about the value of, and synergy between, the arts and literacy.
Featured Work
Door to Door
A beautiful book-length sonnet comprised of forty-nine poems, exploring life in all of its phases.
Door to Door is a celebration of accident and grace in a world where wonder is too often supplanted by obligation. This collection of poems is split into five parts roughly corresponding to the author’s life phases, touching on her experiences of childhood, family, motherhood, and aging, as well as her reflections on art, love, loss, and the mysteries of the natural world.
Award-winning, best-selling author Emma Walton Hamilton’s love of language is evident throughout; her voice is playful, at times reverential, and always interested in the magic and imagery of the subjects she tackles.
“I don’t just want to read poems like this, I want to read essays about poems like this, I want to see the cinema, the photography, the paintings that poems like this could inspire… Remarkable!” – Raymond Antrobus, poet, 2021 Bridport International Poetry Prize Judge
“Emma Walton Hamilton’s Door to Door contains an exuberant range of poetic forms and structures and with it her willingness to try just about anything. Her range of subjects is also impressive.” – Billy Collins, US Poet Laureate
“Walton Hamilton wears her yoke lightly, her poems immersed and persistently optimistic about the constraints of familiarity . . . But even into the deepest crevasse “drops a seed / of hope,” and out of the rift comes poetry” – Julie Sheehan
Other Works
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The Enchanted Symphony
2023
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The First Notes: The Story of Do, Re, Mi
2022
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HomeWork: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years
2019
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The Very Fairy Princess: Attitude of Gratitude
2016
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The Very Fairy Princess: Graduation Girl
2014
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The Very Fairy Princess
2010
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Julie Andrews Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies
2010
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Raising Bookworms: Getting Kids Reading for Pleasure and Empowerment
2008
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The Great American Mousical
2006
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Dragon: Hound of Honor
2004
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Simeon's Gift
2003
Awards and Recognition
- 2021 Bridport Prize for poetry
- Grammy Award - Best Spoken Word for Children
- Emmy Award nominee for Julie's Greenroom
- 9 Times NY Times Bestseller