In the beginning, I was a city girl from farm country—born in Des Moines and raised in Omaha—where I was fond of tromping through woodlots and reading books by flashlight. In high school I captained the debate team, founded the math club, and didn’t date much.

 In university, I studied particle physics, and worked briefly at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland. Physics was awesome, but graduate school kind of sucked. I got sick, and at some point I remembered that I wanted to write books.  (I say "physicist" because there's no other shorthand, but actually I'm a scientist the way the kid who dropped out of med school is a doctor.) So I switched gears from research scientist to poet and children’s writer. I think my parents thought I would end up living under a bridge. But things actually worked out okay.

Books: I have ten of them — six novels, and three volumes of poetry, and a memoir. Four of my novels are for young adults: pair of stand-alone high fantasies, Plain Kate and Sorrow's Knot, the science fiction duology The Scorpion Rules and The Swan Riders. My middle-grade novels are  Stand on the Sky and, most recently, Simon Sort of Says. Plain Kate straddles the line between YA and MG and sometimes gets tucked here too.

Awards: My novels have a fistful of honors, including a Newbery Honor, the Governor Genearl’s Award, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year award, and the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award. My poetry has won the CBC Canadian Literary Award and several other awards.

Did you notice I got to Canada in there somewhere?   Yeah, that was true love.  I'm married to a Canadian boy, James Bow, who also writes novels. We’re parenting two teenaged kiddos. I have a big goofy dog and two cats, including #Cygnustheemotionalsupportcat, whose ridiculous overbite and slobbery love keeps me grounded.

My writing has helped me do cool things, like live with Kazakh nomads for six weeks; play opening act for Margaret Atwood; and ghostwrite for Stephen Hawking. Apart from my writing I have a very un-cool, low-key life. I love my garden, especially the pond with the fish in it. I love to cook for people and believe in the social power of dinner parties. I keep my activism out of online spaces, but have been known to show up at school board meetings and city hall hearings. Usually I like being very bad at kickboxing and yoga, but right now I’m struggling with Long Covid and sometimes use a wheelchair.

I have both American and Canadian citizenships, and I live in Kitchener, Ontario,and I do my writing in a shed in that beloved garden