Hi there! My name is Lena Coakley and I’m a young adult author living in Toronto. I wrote the YA fantasies Witchlanders and Worlds of Ink and Shadow: A novel of the Brontës and the middle grade novel, Wicked Nix.
Witchlanders was called “one stunning teen debut” by Kirkus Reviews and won a 2012 SCBWI Crystal Kite award for the Americas. Worlds of Ink and Shadow was a Globe & Mail bestseller, a White Pine award nominee and was listed on both CBC and Quill & Quire’s Best Books of the Year. Wicked Nix was nominated for the Silver Birch Express, Sundogs, Diamond Willow and RMBA awards. I’m also the author of two children’s picture books, On the Night of the Comet and Mrs. Goodhearth and the Gargoyle.
Still reading? Okay, here’s a bit more:
Yes, that’s me.
I was born in the small coastal town of Milford, Connecticut to a kindergarten teacher and a drama professor. Unfortunately, they couldn’t raise me for long, so I was shuttled back and forth between relatives until I landed with a bump on the doorstep of a grandmother so eccentric and larger-than-life, I’m pretty sure she was created by Mr. Dickens. She was called “Mard,” and she had many opinions, all of them correct. I should also add that she loved me, something I took for granted at the time, but which, it turns out, makes a lot of difference.
I went to Garden City High School on Long Island where I read novels and was a lazy student. Creative Writing was the only class I ever failed. After that, I went to Sarah Lawrence College, where I studied drama—but since I was so introverted that I didn’t much like being looked at, and so dreamy that I was never “in the moment,” but in some much better, invented moment of my own, I was a pretty bad actress. I moved my focus to creative writing (in spite of High School) and was marginally better at it.
Mard
I married a Canadian and moved to Toronto, Canada, and I’m still there.
STILL reading? Here are 5 things people might not know about me:
1) My name is pronounced LAY-NA, not LEE-NA.
2) When I was little, I wanted to be either a trapeze artist or a jewel thief. (Because my favorite movie was To Catch a Thief with Cary Grant.)
3) My favorite movie now is probably Blade Runner, Casablanca or The Wizard of Oz. I know, everybody says those, but I can’t help it. Oh, or maybe Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Love that one too.
3) I am both a US and a Canadian citizen.
5) I don’t write alone! I would not have been published without my fabulous writing group: Kathy Stinson, Hadley Dyer and Paula Wing. (No, we don’t have a cute name for ourselves. I’ve tried to suggest them, but they always roll their eyes at me.)
Looking for a professional bio? Use this:
Lena Coakley’s first novel, Witchlanders, was called “one stunning teen debut” by Kirkus Reviews and won the SCBWI Crystal Kite award for the Americas. Her latest novel, Worlds of Ink and Shadow, is a portal fantasy about the young Brontë siblings and the imaginary worlds they wrote about in childhood. Learn more about her at www.lenacoakley.com
If you would like a headshot of me, feel free to use the one above or this one. A photo-credit is included in the top left-hand corner, but if you are shrinking the photo to a small size where the credit would not be legible, please use the following credit: Emma-Lee Photography.
