Kelly Easton

Kelly Easton is the author of nine novels for middle-grade readers and young adults, and an adult novel, Time in the Region of Sky. Her most recent novel for children, The Outlandish Adventures of Liberty Aimes (Wendy Lamb Books) was a Jr. Library Guild Selection. Hiroshima Dreams, won the 2008 Asian/Pacific American Literature Award, the ASTAL Rhode Island Middle School Book of the Year Award, and a MassBooks Highly Recommended listing. Her other awards include selection on the 2008-9 Kentucky Bluegrass Award Master List, an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, an ALA Popular Paperback for Teens, the Boston Authors Club Julia Ward Howe Honor Award, a Golden Kite Honor Award, Illinois Read for a Lifetime List, ABE Award Finalist, a CCBC Best Books selection, New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age selections, a Flamingnet Top Choice selection, and a Booksense Top Ten pick. She has also published adult short fiction, poems, and has had her plays produced nationally.

Kelly has a MFA in playwriting from the University of California at San Diego. She has taught writing and literature at the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College, Roger Williams University, and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Kelly is on the faculty of the ASTAL Writing Institute. She has also worked as a consultant on curriculum development in clinical settings such as HMOs and Hospice. She lives on islands in Rhode Island and Massachusetts with her husband, Michael Ruben, and children, where she is finishing two new books for middle gradeone funny, one fantastical.

Most recently, Kelly has a picture book contract with Kar-Ben, an imprint of Lerner, and has had stories published in The Literary Review and Tethered by Letters.