Anne Mazer

Anne Mazer was born in 1953 in Schenectady, New York. The daughter of novelists Harry and Norma Fox Mazer, Mazer had a childhood filled with books and grew up surrounded by the stuff of the writer's life: typewriters clacking and breakfast conversations about "plot, characterization, and dialogue." An avid reader, Mazer admits that she would often sneak out of high school to go to the public library. But Mazer didn't plan to be a writer, and she went on to study art, instead, at Syracuse University's School of Visual and Performing Arts. She also studied French language and literature at the Sorbonne in Paris, where she lived for three years.

It was in Paris that Mazer began writing, but she didn't consider the picture book form until after the first of her two children was born. Watch Me, her first published work, became one of a number of critically acclaimed picture books; Moose Street, published two years later, showed Mazer to be equally adept at crafting young adult novels. In addition to writing her own fiction, Mazer has edited several anthologies dedicated to showcasing the many cultures and socioeconomic situations in which today's young people live.