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Joëlle Écormier
Joëlle Écormier at the 6th Book and Comic Festival on December 9, 2009 in Saint-Denis, Réunion
Born	(1967-03-31) March 31, 1967 Le Tampon La Réunion France
Occupation	Writer
Language	French

Joëlle Écormier is a French writer born on March 31, 1967, in Le Tampon, Réunion, where she lives. Réunion is an overseas department of France and an island in the southwestern Indian Ocean.

After writing for herself during her childhood, she was a homemaker when she participated in a literary experiment launched by the book club France Loisirs in 1998: the collaborative writing of a novel whose first pages were endorsed by Yann Queffélec, and whose later pages were to be chosen from international submissions. The selection of her submission for the second chapter of this collaborative work of fiction, which appeared in 1999 under the title 30 jours à tuer ("Thirty Days to Kill") led the young woman to launch herself into a career as a writer.

Écormier's first independent novel, Le Grand Tamarinier ("The Big Tamarind Tree"), was published by the Réunion publishing house Azalées Éditions in 2000. Le Grand Tamarinier created a child and began a shift towards children's literature, which she pursued with her second work, a tale illustrated by her daughter's drawings. In fact, after 2003 and the appearance of her second novel, Plus léger que l'air ("Lighter Than Air"), Joëlle Écormier, switching to Océan Éditions ("Ocean Editions"), dedicated herself to works for very small children. She attempted to modernize children by avoiding motifs from Réunion cultural folklore. Only in 2009 did she return to books without illustrations by publishing a collection of short stories for adolescents, Je t'écris du pont ("I write to you about the bridge"), and, above all, her third novel, Le Petit Désordre de la mer ("The Little Disorder of the Sea"). Le Petit Désordre de la mer won an award the same year at the Book and Comic Festival in Saint-Denis, Réunion.

Biography

Youth and path before publishing

Joëlle Écormier was born in 1967 in Le Tampon, a township located in the southern part of the island Réunion, a French overseas department in the southwestern Indian Ocean. Since the time she was very young, she wrote texts for herself, which she did not publish. She passed a literary baccalaureate (equivalent to a high school diploma) during the time of her schooling.

Dreaming of speaking English everyday, she entered college for the first year of a DEUG, (similar to an associate degree). However, disappointed, she quickly abandoned her studies. Nonetheless, she obtained an interpreter-guide certificate, allowing her to practice the language with English-speaking tourists. Joëlle Écormier always writes in an open manner, and her path took her to live at Cherbourg, then at Toulouse. Furthermore, she became the mother of two children whom she raised for ten years before rejoining the workforce as saleswoman in a large bookstore.

Inauguration of a children's collection

An admirer of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's Petit Prince (The Little Prince), Joëlle Écormier entered a three-year period beginning in 2006 in which she published fifteen works of children's literature. Shifting to another Réunion publisher, Océan Éditions, she first put forward N'oublie pas que je m'appelle Octavie ("Don't forget that my name is Octavie"). The album, illustrated by Modeste Madoré and addressed to children of age six and up, tells the story of a pair of octopuses, Octavie and Octébo, who have conflicting dreams: Octavie hopes to get his octopus doctorate, but Octébo just wants to start a big family.

The same year, in the same collection and targeting the same age range, Joëlle Écormier also came out with Le Pays Dézétoiles (A word play on "The Country of the Stars"), illustrated by Laure Seabra, and then Mais que fait grand-mère Kalle?, illustrated by Nathalie Millet. Le Pays Dézétoiles describes a little star, Tizétoile, who does not know how to shine like the others. Tizétoile is called a "zétoile," making a play off the word for star, "étoile." Mais que fait grand-mère Kalle? describes a classic Réunion character, the witch Grandmother Kalle. intending to help young readers of age three and up explore her daily life near the volcano Piton de la Fournaise. In fact, these three titles form the first three children's books published by Océan Éditions, inaugurating her collection Ocean Youth.

The author again picked up the premise of Mais que fait grand-mère Kalle? in 2008 with two more works, one on the daily life of La Buse, famous historical pirate of Réunion and the Indian Ocean^,, and the other on the daily life of the dodo, this bird endemic to Mauritius and extinct in the real world. According to the publisher, "In this series, the author enjoys unveiling the hidden face of legends or famous characters from here and elsewhere." In doing so, according to Joëlle Écormier herself, she endeavors to avoid motifs from Réunion folklore and its children's literature by doing away with what she considers the typical character, the little tenrec living on its volcano.