Laurie Halse (rhymes with "waltz") Anderson pretended she was a polar bear when she walked to school through the snow of Syracuse, New York. As a little girl, she would pound away at her father's old typewriter for hours, writing newspaper columns, stories, and letters. She loved watching her father write poetry and reading the funnies on the floor of his office.

Laurie fell in love with words when her second-grade teacher taught her how to write haiku. Her favorite book is the dictionary, which is a good thing because she is a terrible speller. She tried to read every book in her school library, a heavenly place. She loves librarians!

One of her favorite books was Heidi. This led to curiosity about foreign cultures. As a senior in high school, she was an American Field Service exchange student to Denmark, where she lived on a pig farm. She had a
great time there and can still speak Danish.

When she came back to the United States, she attended Onondaga Community College in Syracuse, New York, then transferred to Georgetown University where she earned a bachelors degree in Languages and Linguistics.

More to come..............