NIELSEN, SUSIN is the award-winning author of five young adult novels. She got her start feeding cast and crew on the popular television series, Degrassi Junior High. They hated her food, but they saw a spark in her writing. Nielsen went on to pen sixteen episodes of the hit TV show. Since then, Nielsen has written for over 20 Canadian TV series. Her first young adult novel, Word Nerd, was published in 2008 to critical acclaim. It won multiple Young Readers’ Choice Awards, as did her second novel, Dear George Clooney: Please Marry My Mom. Her third novel, The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen, won the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Canadian Library Association’s Children’s Book of the Year Award, and a number of Young Readers’ Choice Awards. Author Wally Lamb named it his top YA pick for 2012 in his “First Annual Wally Awards,” and recently Rolling Stone magazine put it at #27 in their list of “Top 40 Best YA Novels.” We Are All Made of Molecules, published in 2015, was longlisted for UK’s Carnegie Medal and nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Nielsen’s latest novel, Optimists Die First, came out in February 2017. It has received starred reviews in Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, The School Library Journal and Quill & Quire. Her books have been translated into many languages. She lives in Vancouver with her family and two naughty cats.