Stella Pevsner

Stella Pevsner was born and grew up in Lincoln, Illinois, and taught school there for two years. She always enjoyed creative writing classes but thought, "You have to be dead, like Mark Twain, to be a writer."

One summer she migrated to Chicago and never did a turnaround to her home town. She registered for a night course in advertising and loved "making up this stuff and getting paid for it." She got a job writing ads for a department store and worked her way up to copywriter for various ad agencies.

For kicks, she took a different step when offered the job of publicity head for a perfume agency. This included travel, and whetted her appetite for trips to exotic lands.

Later, married and the mother of four children, she was asked by a son to 'write a book kids can enjoy.' His favorite authors were too slow in putting out books. She accepted the challenge, wrote one book and, when that was published, a second and then on and on.

"I write books that will entertain children," she says, "but there's always an underlying problem, like divorce. I got letters from that one, saying this book had made things easier when the parents divorced. But basically, I lace everything with humor and an upbeat attitude. Hey, adults read books for pleasure. Why shouldn't kids?"

Stella Pevsner's books have won many awards, including, "The Golden Kite," "Society of Midland Authors," "Carl Sandburg," "State of Virginia," and the "Charlie May Simon Award."

One of her books, "A Smart Kid Like You," was made into an after-school show under the title, "Me and Dad's New Wife." She now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she continues to writes books for kids to enjoy.