Karen Cushman

Young adult novelist Karen Cushman has never been short on ideas. It just didn't occur to her until later in life that if she wrote them down, others would want to buy them. It wasn't until 1994, at age 50 and at the insistence of her husband that she wrote down one of her stories. It was a story that would earn her a Newbery Honor Award and launch her into a career as a storyteller.

Karen Cushman has always cultivated an interest in history, particularly medieval history. For many years, she taught at a museum studies department in San Francisco. It is that love of history-and the interest in how common people of the era lived-that has translated into a series of successful books that have had great appeal to young readers.

Cushman attended Stanford University on a scholarship and has degrees in Greek, English, human behavior, and museum studies and lives on an island in Washington.

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