Jacqueline Woodson Biography

Jacqueline Woodson is an award-winning author of young adult books. Raised and educated in Greenville, South Carolina, and Brooklyn, New York, Woodson graduated from college with a B.A. in English, and then worked in New York City as a drama therapist for runaways and homeless children. She now writes full-time in Brooklyn. Woodson often writes about characters that feel out of place and the difficulties young people face. Woodson won a Newbery Honor in 2006 for Show Way. Locomotion was a National Book Award finalist and won a Corretta Scott King Honor in 2004. Woodson also won a Corretta Scott King Honor in 2001 and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Miracle's Boys, which was made into a mini-series. In 2006, she won the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults from the Young Adult Library Services Association.