Virginia Frances Schwartz grew up in rural Ontario, Canada, but now lives in Queens, New York, where she taught writing in the public schools before devoting her career to her own writing. She is best known for her novels for young adults which have been ALA Best Books for YAs, and winners of multiple Canadian awards including the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction, the Ontario Silver Birch Fiction Award, the Manitoba Young Readers' Choice Award, and British Columbia Red Cedar Award. Her work includes Crossing to Freedom and If I Just Had Two Wings. She teaches a creative writing course at UCLA Online.
