Lauren Wolk is a celebrated children's fiction novelist, a visual artist, and an award-winning poet. She was born in Baltimore and has since lived in various parts of the world, including California, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Canada, and Ohio. Wolk now resides with her family on Cape Cod.
Throughout her life, Wolk has had a variety of jobs, all of which have contributed to her development as a writer. After graduating from Brown University with an English literature degree, she worked at the St. Paul American Indian Center, writing a book on how to assist battered women in the Native American community. She then worked as a senior editor with an educational publisher in Toronto before starting a family and becoming a freelance writer and editor in 1988. In 1999, Random House published her first novel, Those Who Favor Fire. Later, she became a full-time, certified English teacher at Sturgis Charter School in Hyannis, working there for four years before leaving to become Assistant Director at the Cape Cod Writers Center and to write her second novel, Forgiving Billy.
In addition to her novels, Wolk is an accomplished visual artist and poet. She has participated in various exhibits and has shown her work at the Larkin Gallery in Provincetown and the Post Office Gallery in North Truro. Her writing has been recognized with numerous awards, including the New England Book Award, the Newbery Honor Book, the Jane Addams Honor Book, and the Hackney Literary Award. Her novel Wolf Hollow was also shortlisted for several awards, including the Carnegie Medal, the New York Historical Society Children's Book Prize, and the Waterstones Book Prize. Wolk's work is deeply rooted in her personal experiences, and her stories often reflect her love for the natural world, as seen in Wolf Hollow, which is set on a small farm during 1943, and Beyond the Bright Sea, which is inspired by her decades spent near the ocean.