Histories and Mysteries

I have been writing stories since early childhood. My sister and I would spend hours creating masterpieces of stapled paper and handwritten words, complete with pen-and-ink covers and boxed illustrations. Probably my favorite part of the process was creating a list for the back cover: “Don’t miss the other books in this series!” That list of eye-catching titles always seemed like way less work than (hand) writing out a whole book. But isn’t that just the way of things? The road to publication was long and winding, peppered with many small successes including: a variety of national magazine publications, being a 2005 PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award honoree, and receiving the 2008 SCBWI’s Susan Landers Glass Scholarship Award, for the book that would later become Nowhere Girl. My first picture book, The Tiptoe Guide to Tracking Fairies, was published in 2009. I now live with my husband and two daughters in the Boston area, where I continue to write books for children and young adults. I am also an agent with the Erin Murphy Literary Agency (but that’s a story for another day). What more do you want to know? I am… mother, friend, reader, traveler, food-lover, chocolate connoisseur. I am not… especially tidy, a fan of mushy vegetables, or good at coming up with spur-of-the-moment self-portraits.

Laurie Ann Thompson loves capybaras, hates caves, and is ambivalent about mushy bananas. She is the coauthor of the Two Truths and a Lie series and author of several award-winning nonfiction books, including Emmanuel’s Dream, a picture book biography of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, which was the recipient of the Schneider Family Book Award and was named an ALA Notable Book and a CCBC Choice, among other accolades. She lives outside Seattle with her family, and you can visit her online at www.lauriethompson.com.