I moved to Fort Collins, Colorado, got married to Ian, and after five years of revising What the Moon Saw, I had it published with Delacorte/Penguin Random House, the press that ended up publishing my first seven books. During my two years there, people welcomed me into their lives and shared their culture and stories with me. The town was Huajuapan, nestled in the mountainous Mixtec region of Oaxaca, and it turned out to be an enchanting place. A small university in a town in Oaxaca, Mexico was the first to offer me a job, and I snatched it up.

in Anthropology and French, I decided I wanted to go somewhere faraway, so I got certified in teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) and sent job applications around the globe.

150 years in the future.)Īfter I earned my B.A. (My young adult sci-fi novel, Virch (Spring 2024) is partly set on the Chesapeake Bay. My favorite memories of that time are nights swimming in the bay with glow-in-the-dark phytoplankton and watching herons wade in the marsh and gathering sea glass on an isolated beach. (There used to be a poodle-grooming business in the basement). There I lived in a house with secret passages called 'Poodle Doodle House'. Mary's College in southern Maryland, near the Chesapeake Bay. When I wasn't in school, I was exploring the woods and discovering old things - rusted fences, abandoned barns, hidden creeks, tree hollows. When I was eleven, my mom, dad, younger brother, and I moved to a Baltimore suburb that used to be farmers' fields and woods. I was born in Baltimore City and spent the first ten years of my life there in old brick houses with alleys. but if you're looking for something short and sweet, go here.

The Lightning Queen by Laura Resau