Dina Colangelo

Dina Colangelo was born in Pittsburgh, left for years, and came back. Pittsburghers always do.

She spent twenty-five years as a clothing designer, including Reebok apparel lines for Dick’s Sporting Goods, before going back to school and becoming a soft goods design engineer. That’s a fancy way of saying she still makes things out of fabric, just with more math. By night, she’s a reader, writer and illustrator.

She is the co-author of The Pittsburgh Cookie Table Guide and The Pittsburgh Cookie Table Planner, which may explain a few things about her relationship with food. She has also illustrated four children’s books, including Rocky the Rockefeller Christmas Tree and Vampetz the Legendairy Tale.

Her debut novel, NOW WHAT?, is loosely based on her own journey of losing 125 pounds and keeping it off. Like her heroine, Lizzie, she spent years waiting to start living. And yes, like Lizzie, she was banned from jump-rope class. Her instructor was a six-foot-five man named Roger. She maintains it was the rope’s fault.

More novels are on the way.