Dawn B. Sova

DAWN SOVA (1949 -) is an Edgar Award winner born in Passaic, New Jersey, to first-generation Polish and Czech parents and raised in Garfield, New Jersey. She earned a doctorate from Drew University and taught for 28 years. She is the author of 22 books. In 1997, "Agatha Christie, A-to-Z" was nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for Best Non-Fiction work. In 2002, Sova won the MWA Best Non-Fiction Award for "Edgar Allan Poe A-to-Z." Both works have been featured in questions on the television show "Jeopardy."

Sova has spoken extensively on issues of intellectual freedom and published four books on the topic: "Banned Plays," "Forbidden Films," "Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Social Grounds," and "Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds." The last two books have gone into third editions. She is also co-author of "100 Banned Books," a Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection, and of "120 Banned Books," an entry in the 2001 Book Lovers’ Calendar. Her books have been translated into Spanish, Polish, Czechoslovakian, Italian, Korean, Chinese and Japan and published in ten countries. She has been privileged to serve as guest speaker for regional, state and local libraries; booksellers’ conferences and education associations on issues related to the numerous and continuing challenges to intellectual freedom.

In addition to her work related to censorship, she has published 16 books on a variety of topics from "Sex and the Single Mother," to "Solving Word Problems in Geometry" and "The Encyclopedia of Mistresses."

The author is currently writer-in-residence at her son’s Herbert Grand Hotel in Kingfield, Maine.