Anne Bowen wrote her first story in elementary school.  It was about a very tiny family living inside a very large house and was very similar to THE BORROWERS by Mary Norton.  Some might call this plagiarism, but really it was more about Anne discovering a mentor-author for the kind of stories she loved to read and using those stories to guide her own writing.  And even though she didn’t know it at the time, Anne was learning to read as a writer and learning how to write from other writers.  As an elementary teacher of language arts, Anne encouraged her students to discover those stories that touched them in some unique way.  She encouraged them to find authors whose writing took their breath away and then ask themselves,  “What did this author do in his/her writing that I like so much? What can I learn from this author about the craft of writing?”   Anne was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and at the age of nine moved to Port Washington, Wisconsin, a small town nestled along the shores of Lake Michigan.  Moving from the Nebraska prairie to the rolling hills of Wisconsin, from a big city to a small town, from one school to another, was a difficult adjustment for Anne.  But she grew to love the sound of the foghorn warning ships coming into the harbor.  She grew to love the jetty that stretched out into the lake, frozen with icicles in winter, and she even grew to love the humid summers, swimming in the lake's chilly water with her brother and sister.  Best of all, Anne discovered that moving didn't take friends away, it gave her new friends, at school and in her own neighborhood.   At the age of 22, Anne traded hills for mountains, and moved to Utah to begin her teaching career.  She married her husband, Art, and has lived in Ogden for the past thirty years.  Anne has two grown sons, five grandchildren, one grand-puppy, and two senior golden retrievers.   Anne Bowen has a Bachelor’s Degree in Deaf Education and a Master’s Degree in Education.  She has attended four summer writing institutes at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York and several NCTE conventions.  She was the recipient of the 1996-97 Utah English/Language Arts Teacher of the Year Award.

Anne, in New York, with illustrator Tomek Bogacki, her granddaughter, Addison, and her editor, Ellen Stein,

Things to know about Anne:   She likes: peppermint ice cream, chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter toast, birthday cake, most dogs, (especially golden retrievers), wolves, shoes (red ones!), the color blue, Christmas, vacations, rainy days and sunny days, the ocean, the mountains, and she loves wearing her pajamas all day.   She doesn't like: liver, tofu, bubble gum, school lunches, the color gray, scary movies, romantic novels, snakes or spiders (too creepy and crawly), waiting in long lines, being too hot or too cold.   Family: one husband-Art,                two children-Will and Erik                one daughter-in-law- Miko                five grandchildren - Taylor, Addison, Mathew, Aden, and Liam                pets- Mike and Emma                two grandpuppies - River and Sadie   Favorite things to do: dressing up, laughing a lot, dancing, reading, running, playing with her grandchildren, reading, spending time with family, reading, having lunch with good friends, reading, going to New York, and writing, of course!   Some of her favorite books: The Secret Garden, Maniac Magee, The Borrowers, Henry and Mudge, "Let's Get A Pup!" Said Kate, Koala Lou, Where the Wild Things Are (These are just a few of her favorite books.)   Some of her favorite authors: Cynthia Rylant, Patricia MacLachlan, Karen Hesse, Sharon Creech, Kevin Henkes, Mem Fox, Randall Jarrell, Mary Oliver, William Stafford, Naomi Shihab Nye.