Contributor: Andrea Loney

Award-winning children’s author Andrea J. Loney’s books celebrate diversity, joy, and kindness. Originally from a small town in New Jersey, Andrea worked as a software specialist and tech support as she earned her MFA in Dramatic Writing at New York University. Next, she ran away with The Big Apple Circus, and she then took an Amtrak train across the country to Hollywood, where she spent over a decade working in the film, television, and gaming industries, mainly at The Walt Disney Company.

Her books include Take a Picture of Me, James Van Der Zee (Lee and Low New Voices Award winner and NAACP Image Award nominee), Bunnybear (ALA Rainbow List), and Double Base Blues (Caldecott Honor for illustrator Rudy Gutierrez). Her poetry can also be found in the critically-acclaimed children’s poetry anthology No Voice Too Small: Fourteen Young Americans making history. Andrea’s recent works include the middle-grade chapter book VIP Stacey Abrams: Voting Visionary, the futuristic chapter book series Abby in Orbit, and the picture book biography Curve and Flow: The Elegant Vision of LA Architect Paul R. Williams. Currently a computer science professor at a local community college, Andrea lives in Los Angeles, California, with her towering stacks of children’s books, her devoted family, and their incredibly spoiled pets. Learn more at andreajloney.com.