Summer Edward

Summer Edward is a Gingko Prize-longlisted author who writes fiction, poetry and nonfiction for readers of all ages. A trained literacy specialist and children's editor at one of the major five big publishing houses, Summer spent the last decade blogging about, reviewing, editing, and planning events around Caribbean books for young readers, before making her debut in the world of children's literature with her picture storybook The Wonder of the World Leaf, published by HarperCollins. In 2021, Heinemann will publish 6 illustrated leveled books for young readers written by Summer for their Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ Shared Reading Collection, starting with a biography-in-verse titled Renaissance Man: Geoffrey Holder's Life in the Arts.

Born in Trinidad, Summer grew up a third culture kid. She earned a master of education at the University of Pennsylvania. A former college writing instructor, she studied fiction at the Kelly Writers House and received writing residencies from the Highlights Foundation and the Cropper Foundation. Summer created Anansesem, an ezine covering Caribbean literature for young readers, which was published for a decade. When she isn't writing, she works as a children's fiction editor at Heinemann, a readers' advisory specialist at EBSCOHost Novelist, and reviews Caribbean children's/YA books for The Horn Book Magazine. She is a lifelong Roothbert Fellow, and has served on the juries of the Golden Baobab Prizes for African children's literature, OpenIDEO's Early Childhood Book Challenge, and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. A dual citizen of America and Trinidad and Tobago, Summer lives and works out of her home in sunny Trinidad and spends four summer months at her second home in the U.S. Learn more by visiting her website at www.summeredward.com