About Nina
I’ve always been a book nerd. One sunny summer in Seattle, when I was about twelve years old, I decided that I was going to read the entire Oz series from beginning to end. I set myself up on our porch swing with snacks and drinks and lots of pillows. Every afternoon, I started a new book in the series and read late into the night. I finished each book by around 10 the next morning, and after lunch, I was on to the next one. It took an entire month, but I did it. I guess I’ve always been a bit obsessive-compulsive too!
After graduating from college with not much of an idea what to do with my oh-so-practical art history degree, I determined to put my love of books and obsessive compulsive nature to good use by becoming an editor. After an internship at an art book publisher, where I realized I didn’t have the right clothes or haircut to fit into the art world, I landed a job as an editorial assistant at Harcourt Children’s Books. I learned everything I ever wanted to know about editing by working for a terrific editor, Anne Davies, and our editorial director, Liz Van Doren, and I had the great pleasure of working with acclaimed authors and illustrators such as Leo & Diane Dillon, Steve Johnson & Lou Fancher and Barbara Diamond Goldin. I loved children’s books, but I missed Seattle’s rain, delicious coffee, and laid-back West Coast lifestyle. So I headed back to my hometown, where I joined educational publisher Wright Group/McGraw-Hill to develop picture books and chapter books for classroom use. In 2003, I was hired by Wizards of the Coast to launch their imprint of fantasy series fiction for young readers. There I have developed and acquired multiple new properties for the company including Candice Ransom’s Time Spies series, the Supernatural Rubber Chicken series by D.L. Garfinkle, R.A. & Geno Salvatore’s first YA series called the Stone of Tymora trilogy, Kimberly Pauley’s Sucks to Be Me series, and the best-selling Practical Guide series.
I’m the author of the New York Times best-selling A Practical Guide to Monsters (Mirrorstone) and Whose Feet? (Random House) which was named a NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) Recommends® selection. I’ve also written more than fifteen early readers for the educational market and in winter quarter, I teach adult students in the Writing for Children certificate program at the University of Washington.
I live in a too-big, too-old Tudor-style home in the heart of Seattle, where I still enjoy compulsively reading children’s books while sitting on my porch swing.