I grew up outside of Washington DC, but it always felt like I had one foot in the South. By the time I was thirteen, my family moved in with my grandmother and great-grandmother, and we had four generations of women living under the same roof – two born and bred in North Carolina. I grew up drinking sweet tea, eating vegetables cooked with a little bacon grease, and biscuits made from scratch. I mean, didn't everyone's great-grandma know how to skin a chicken, tat lace, and make dresses without a pattern?
I wasn't exactly like either of them. I wore a lot of black, a lot of rings, and spent hours writing in my journals. By the time I graduated high school, I had probably filled a hundred of them and gotten my friends more than a few dates with my poems. That was the beginning of writing for me.
I have an MA in education, and taught in the DC area until I moved to Los Angeles ten years ago. In addition to writing YA fiction, I am a Reading Specialist and continue to teach and lead book groups for children and teens, part-time. I have learned more from my students than I ever learned in school. I still live in LA, with my husband, son, and daughter. I'm very superstitious and have lots of charms. I love disaster movies, and I could easily live on pizza and Diet Coke.
http://www.kamigarcia.com
