Pegi Deitz Shea

Pegi is a two-time winner of the CT Book Award for Children’s Literature, with titles recommended by the International Reading Association, National Council of Teachers of English, American Library Association, Junior Library Guild, Bank Street College and more. She has published more than 500 works for all ages. A CT State Teaching Artist, she taught creative writing 13 years at UCONN, and presented at more than 400 schools, libraries and conferences nationwide.

President of the CT Council of Poets Laureate, Pegi also writes poetry for adults. In 2017, she founded the reading series Poetry Rocks. Her first book for adult readers, The Weight of Kindling (Grayson Books), was published in 2022. After 27 years of Lyme Disease relapses, Pegi has authored Tick Tick Tick Tick, a zany hybrid book of poetry and prose about ticks. (First published in chapbook form by Dancing Girl Press; Expanded Edition by Impspired Publishing.) Her novel-in-verse, Uncharted: The Personal Voyage of Jeanne Baret: the First Woman to Circumnavigate the World is in press.

Many of Pegi’s books for children focus on social justice topics, such as refugees and immigrants in The Whispering Cloth, Tangled Threads, and Stitch in Time; child labor and abuse in Abe in Arms and The Carpet Boy’s Gift; and women’s suffrage in The Taxing Case of the Cows. Noah Webster: Weaver of Words, an Orbis Pictus Honor Book, highlights his work on abolition and universal education, even for slaves, women, and adults. Her biography, Patience Wright: America’s First Sculptor and Revolutionary Spy, graced the cover of “Booklist Magazine” for Women’s History Month, March 2007.

Always a Jersey Girl at heart, she is a wife, mother, dog poop scooper, world traveler, photographer, and lifelong learner based in Vernon, CT.