Tialda Hoogeveen (born 1974 in Haskerdijken, the Netherlands) writes fiction, non-fiction, poetry and articles. She writes for both children and adults, in Dutch and Frisian. As a young child, she was already making books by cutting pictures from leaflets and newspapers and pasting them into her own little booklets. As soon as she learned how to write, she started recording stories and filled homemade books with poems, stories and holiday diaries. As a teenager, she wrote volumes of diary entries and kept up extensive letter and postcard correspondence with friends.

Tialda grew up in the north of the Netherlands on the Frisian countryside, surrounded by cows, sheep and meadow birds. She lived in a house with a dog, cats, chickens, ducks, pigeons and a goat. The large garden around the old, remote house offered endless inspiration and is undoubtedly the starting point of her imagination.

Born and raised in Friesland, she spread her wings at the age of twenty and moved to London to work as an au pair for a theatre family and to take an English language course. She later studied communications in Amsterdam, followed journalism courses in Utrecht, and completed the  programme at Script Plus in Amsterdam. From there, she became a writer and journalist. After living in London, Amsterdam and the Gooi region, she eventually returned to the province where it all began.  

Her work is marked by its diversity. During school visits, children often ask her what her favourite book is. She always replies that each new book becomes her favourite. After all, you spend a long, intense time with a subject or with characters, and they naturally become a part of you. Her non-fiction books often explore themes such as history and nature. Her stories and poems commonly centre on themes of freedom and the search for one’s place in the world. Alongside her writing, Tialda regularly visits schools, libraries and events to give talks, training sessions and workshops.

Her first publication was the children’s book Winterslaap (Hibernation, 2005), which marked the beginning of a non-fiction series about the four seasons. Her latest book is Van oermens tot jou (From caveman to you, Ploegsma, 2024). She is currently working on a short story collection about slavery, also to be published by Ploegsma.

 With five editions,  De geur van hooi (The scent of hay,  Thomas Rap) is her best-known work. Her Frisian-language children’s book Abe en de Aardichman (Gary and the groundling) was selected for the IBBY Honour List 2024 and the White Ravens 2024. It’s illustrations were exhibited at the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava in 2023.