Livia Blackburne

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Livia Blackburne wrote her first novel while researching the neuroscience of reading at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Since then, she’s switched to full-time writing, which also involves getting into people’s heads but without the help of a three tesla MRI scanner.  Her books include Midnight Thief, Rosemarked, Feather and Flame, and Clementine and Danny Save the World (And Each Other), as well as the picture book I Dream of Popo, which received three starred reviews and was on numerous Best of Year lists. She is Chinese American and lives in southern California with her husband and daughter.

Author's Comment: 1. I write fantasy.  Most often YA fantasy, but sometimes I branch out.
2. I was born in Taiwan, raised in Albuquerque, and spent my twenties in Boston, where I earned an A.B. in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard and PhD in cognitive neuroscience from MIT.
3. I started my debut novel Midnight Thief in high school, because writing a novel was the only way I could get out of the mandatory camping requirement.  I finished about 60 pages.  They were 60 awful, awful pages.
4. I finished Midnight Thief 12 years later, because writing a novel was the only way I could keep my sanity while conducting my doctoral research.  This time, I got to 370 pages, and they were much less awful than the initial 60.
5. After over 20 years of alopecia, I finally shaved my head in 2021. It took me a long time to get to that point, but now I wish I’d done it sooner.
6. Like every good Asian kid, I played the piano as a child.  I don’t do that as much anymore, but I still love to sing and dance.
7. I’m horrible at any sports that involve fast moving projectiles, and I dislike most sports that involve highly repetitive movements (running, swimming, biking, etc.).  This leaves basically dancing and martial arts.
8. When I wanted sweets as a child, my mother would give me one M&M.  I thought that was normal, and to this day, have very low tolerance for sweets.  One bite of chocolate bar, half a scoop of ice cream is about all I can take.

Nationality: Chinese American