Anne Blankman has loved to write sto­ries for as long as she can remem­ber. She grew up in Niskayu­na, New York, where she met a class­mate who had sur­vived Cher­nobyl and who even­tu­al­ly inspired Anne to write The Black­bird Girls. They are still friends to this day. Cur­rent­ly, Anne lives in Rich­mond, Vir­ginia with her hus­band, Mike, her daugh­ter, Kirsten, and two res­cue cats. For sev­er­al years, she worked as a chil­dren’s librar­i­an but now she writes full-time. When she isn’t writ­ing, Anne likes to spend time with her fam­i­ly, read, trav­el, knit, and go for long runs. She loves hear­ing from read­ers, and you can vis­it her at anneblankman​.com or @AnneBlankman.