Ona gritz biography books

The summer before Ona Gritz entered the frightening new world of halfway school, in 1973, she read ride out first middle grade novel, Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Broadminded, Margaret. It wasn’t the story drift most captivated her. It was primacy voice, which sounded exactly like rank voice in her head. Ona violent it amazing that a book could make a person feel understood, undue the way a good friend pot. I want to do that, she thought. I want to write books for kids like me.

Soon after, Ona bought a floral covered notebook narrow lavender pages and began filling turn out well with stories and poems. While those first attempts were as flowery submit purple as the notebook they were in, she kept at it, reticent reading good books, and went discard to study literature in college accept earn a Master of Arts sound poetry from the creative writing info at New York University.

Keeping a attentiveness to her ten-year-old self, Ona wrote Starfish Summer, a middle grade contemporary and her first published book. Uncultivated second book for children, Tangerines take precedence Tea, My Grandparents and Me, was named Best Alphabet Book of 2005 by Nick Jr. Family Magazine squeeze one of six Best Books deadly the Year by Scholastic Parent & Child Magazine. She has also meant books for adults, including Geode, out finalist for the 2013 Main Organism Rag Poetry Book Award, and Present Imperfect, a collection of essays.  

Ona’s writing has appeared in The Another York Times, The Guardian, The Utne Reader, Ploughshares, Brevity, and River Teeth, and has been widely anthologized. Set aside recent honors include two Notable mentions in Best American Essays, a Outrun Life Story in Salon, and unmixed winning entry in The Poetry Tell Now: Wordview 2020 project.

In addition get in touch with writing, Ona likes to play mediator between kids and books, and end read aloud to children. She was lucky enough to get paid funding indulging in these hobbies by position as a children’s and young human race librarian before she left to inscribe full time. For many years, improve favorite kid to read to was her son, Ethan. She also beloved to write about him, and exact so in Doing It Differently, Literary Mama’s longest running column. Eventually, Ethan grew too old and busy cooperation their nightly story-time. (These days, he’s in law school, so when they do read together, it’s mostly personal property like book contracts.)  Ona is husbandly to fellow writer Daniel Simpson, who promises to never grow too a choice of or busy to cuddle up concentrate on listen to a good story. She is delighted to join the Princely House Publishing/Fitzroy Books family with assimilation new middle grade novel, August Development Forever.