About Me

This photograph is my family's ancestral village of Pyrgos on the volcanic island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea. 

My father emigrated from Greece after World War II and became a food scientist. This is a photo of him at age 16 on the Nea Hellas, sailing into New York Harbor in 1948.  My mother is a fifth grade language arts teacher from Bayonne, NJ. ​

I'm the author of over 30 books for children and teens. I write about the environment, history, social justice, and people who make a difference. My books have been honored with the Asian/Pacific American Library Association Award for Literature ( Picture Book),  Amelia Bloomer Top Ten List, Junior Library Guild Selection, SCBWI Martha Weston Grant, Paterson Prize for Books for Young People (Picture Book), and more.

I have an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts.  The college is on a hill in Montpelier, the state capital, where the temperature is way below zero in January. The only way to keep warm is to write faster. 

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Public Library

My local public library is where I find new books to read and start many of my own book projects. I don't know what I'd do without it! I also like to visit other libraries, especially The New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. 

Research

I like to visit the places where my characters lived and worked. Sometimes I take my family, because they ask great questions and give me ideas. On a trip to Roosevelt's Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia and the F. D. Roosevelt State Park, I took my mother, who remembers the Great Depression and President Roosevelt first-hand. 
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Working on a story on hawk migration
 at Hawk Mountain, PA.
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10 Things About Me

1. I grew up in an 11th floor apartment in Brooklyn, NY.
2. In elementary school, I played Dorothy's dog Toto in the Wizard of Oz and Fern's mother in Charlotte's Web.
3. This year my butterfly garden is blooming in my backyard. 
4. I am working on a YA verse novel set in Astoria, Queens, where my sons, Sam and Nick, were born. 
5. My son Nick's two pups Rin and Appa are my favorite dogs. 
6. I spent a month canoeing in the wildlife reserve La Verendrey in Quebec and two weeks on the Allagash River in Maine.
7. I try to read a new poem every day.
8. I read The New York Times every morning. 
9. My favorite place is Santorini, where my grandfather was born. 
10. I'm learning to play a ukulele as research for a picture book in progress. Luckily, my husband knows the chords.

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Visiting a children's public library in Elsinore, Denmark in 2019.

My family's apartment on Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

My family

Running my first 5K race on New Year's Day in New Jersey. It was cold!

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Poetry

Writing poetry helps me to become more aware of my word choices and what matters. "Seeing Jupiter" is a poem I wrote about standing in my brother's field in South Jersey on a summer night with my family. It was published in Hoot Review, a cool literary magazine printed on a postcard.

I'm learning to play the ukulele while researching a book about a ukulele player. It helps to have two ukulele players in the family, my husband and brother. Not to mention a lot of ukuleles.