So how has Justina Chen Headley found beauty in words?

The short and sweet bio: 

I always wanted to be a writer--and wrote my first 50-page novella when I was eight.  But after graduating from Stanford, I took a minor detour to work at Microsoft, both in Seattle and Sydney, Australia.  Afterwards, I returned to my first love:  writing young adult fiction.  My latest novel, NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL has received starred reviews in Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.  My debut novel, Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies), was sold at auction and won the 2007 Asian Pacific American Award for Literature.  Girl Overboard was a Junior Library Guild Premier Selection.  Feel free to contact me on Facebook or MySpace or my blog.

And for anyone who wants the painfully long bio:

While I have fond memories of building elaborate snow forts in our small suburb outside Buffalo, NY, no one in my family wept when my dad landed a job in California. All six of us—my parents, two big brothers, little sister and I—packed into our burnt red station wagon and drove to the Bay Area, collecting decal stickers for every state we crossed.

Elementary school was uneventful, aside from being traumatized by my third grade teacher who told me I couldn’t carry a tune. Junior high school is best left unmentioned. But high school! There, I joined the debate team and realized that I could argue and get trophies for it! 

After graduating from Stanford, I moved to Seattle (land of gray and green) and worked as a product manager for Microsoft.  After two years, I traded Seattle for Sydney, Australia. On weekdays, I published and edited magazines, and on weekends, I held baby koalas, swam with dolphins and hiked with wallabies. Of course, with every cute and cuddly animal I encountered in “Oz,” I had a scare with some of the nasties: a palm-sized huntsman spider (in my car!!), bird-sized cockroaches, and a seventeen-foot python…

Back in Seattle, I had an epiphany: I missed creative writing. So I decided to pursue my dream of being a writer and giving back to the community.  I started StrataGem, a consulting group which helped out women and children’s non-profit organizations.

As my kids got older, I read them my favorite children’s books—the books that made me fall in love with reading and writing in the first place. Books like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. and the Betsy-Tacy series. Books like The Phantom Tollbooth. So I took some classes on writing for children, most notably at the University of Washington with two amazing writing instructors (Meg Lippert and Brenda Guiberson), and sold my first book for young readers:  The Patch.

A few months later, I enrolled in a novel-writing course with another gifted instructor (Janet Lee Carey), and began my first young adult novel. Thanks to my incredibly awesome agent, Steven Malk from Writers House, that novel was sold within a few days. Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies) was the 2007 winner of the Asian Pacific American Award for Literature.  My next YA novel, GIRL OVERBOARD, was a Junior Library Guild Premiere Selection.  And my latest novel, NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL, has received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus.

In between my adventures with my two children, I read, run, walk, geocache, and practice yoga. I’m an ardent believer in giving back to the community, which is why part of the proceeds from my young adult novels will benefit teens somehow.