Erin Bow is a self-described “physicist turned poet turned author of novels that will make you cry on the bus.” Born in the United States, Erin studied particle physics, and worked briefly at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland. “Physics was awesome,” she says, but “at some point I remembered that I wanted to write books.” She is very good at it, it turns out, with nearly a dozen novels, volumes of poetry and a memoir to her name. Erin writes high fantasies, Plain Kate and Sorrow’s Knot, and science fiction, The Scorpion Rules and The Swan Riders. She’s won the CBC Canadian Literary award, the Governor General Award, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year award, and the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award. Her latest book, Simon Sort of Says is a dark but gently approached story of a young boy who is the sole survivor of a school shooting. Kirkus Reviews calls it “an uproarious small-town comedy with a devastating tragedy at its core, played out by a cast as memorable for its animals as its people. Adroit, sensitive, horrifying, yet hilarious.”

Erin eventually fell in love with and married “a Canadian boy, James Bow, who also writes young adult novels.” James and Erin live in Kitchener with two tweenaged daughters, both of whom want to be scientists.

Appearing in: Authors@School, TWS2. Choose Your Own Disaster