Edith Pattou is the author of three award-winning fantasy novels for young adults, including EAST which was chosen in 2005 as one of the “100 Best of the Best Young Adult Books for the 21st Century” by Young Adult Library Association. It has recently been optioned to be made into a movie, and a musical theatrical production is in development. She is also the author of the New York Times bestselling picture book, Mrs. Spitzer’s Garden.

Her most recent book is GHOSTING, a contemporary novel for teens told in free verse from the perspectives of nine characters whose lives converge on a hot summer night in a Midwestern town with horrific consequences.

She was born in Evanston, Illinois, and grew up in the Chicago area, graduating from Francis W. Parker School. She completed her B.A. at Scripps College in Claremont, California where she won the Crombie Allen Award for creative writing. She later completed a Masters degree in English Literature at Claremont Graduate School, followed by a Masters of Library and Information Science at UCLA.

She has worked for a medical association, a clothing boutique, a recording studio, the Playboy Foundation, a public television station, a school library, two public libraries, two advertising agencies, and two bookstores. She has lived in Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, Durham, NC, Cambridge, England, Stockholm, Sweden, and currently resides with her husband, Charles, in Columbus, Ohio.

On a hot summer night in a Midwestern town, a high school teenage prank goes horrifically awry. Alcohol, guns, and a dare. Within minutes, as events collide, innocents becomes victims—with tragic outcomes altering lives forever, a grisly and unfortunate scenario all too familiar from current real-life headlines. But victims can also become survivors, and as we come to know each character through his/her own distinctive voice and their interactions with one another, we see how, despite pain and guilt, they can reach out to one another, find a new equilibrium, and survive.

Told through multiple points of view in naturalistic free verse and stream of consciousness, this is an unforgettable, haunting tale.