Maria Padian is a bestselling and award-winning young adult fiction author, who hails from Maine but was born in New York. She has a deep love for books and considers herself a passionate bookworm. Padian has a huge stack of books on her night table that she reads and re-reads whenever she has the time. Before becoming a full-time author, she worked in various fields including as a broadcast journalist, essayist, and freelance writer.
Padian is known for her debut fiction work, the young adult novel "Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress." The novel was an award-winning book, winning the Maine Lupine Honor Award, the Maine Literary Award, and was also chosen by the ALA and YALSA as one of the Best Books for Young Adults in 2009. She is a "from-away" Mainer, who has a deep appreciation for the state she now calls home. In addition to "Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress," she has written several other books including "Jersey Tomatoes Are the Best," "Out of Nowhere," and "Wrecked."
Padian is not just a reader but also a creator of stories. She has a deep appreciation for the work that goes into writing a book and has stopped assigning a "number" to anyone's work. She is in awe of anyone brave enough to put their work out there and encourages them to carry on. When she is not writing, she plays USTA league tennis, gardens, skis, drinks too much coffee, loads logs into her wood stove, and walks her Australian Shepherd. She lives on Maine's midcoast with her family and can be found at her website, mariapadian.com.