Unofficial Bio

Once upon a time, there was a small, bespectacled girl of from a big African-American, Jamaican, and Panamanian family. She enjoyed listening to family stories, but more than anything else in the world, she loved to read books and write her own stories. So after high school, she left her small suburban New Jersey town to study writing in New York City. She wrote plays, poetry, and screenplays that sometimes made people cry.

Immediately after graduating from New York University with an MFA in Dramatic Writing, she joined the Big Apple Circus. After a year of traveling the east coast with clowns, elephants, and acrobats, left the circus and ran away to Hollywood.

Then she wrote, wrote and wrote and went to lots of meetings. She worked at Disney and small production companies. She even wrote for the Chicken Soup for the Soul tv series.

Eventually, she left the studios to help make the world a better place by teaching computer skills to veterans and other people struggling in the job market.

While teaching, she fell in love with writing new stories – novels, standup comedy routines, middle grade books, and picture books. Especially picture books. 

So she learned everything she could about writing books for children and then she wrote some more. She took a lot of chances. She got a lot of rejections. 

And then something wonderful happened. One editor said yes. And then some more yesses followed. Eventually she became a published children’s book author. 

The bespectacled chick now lives in sunny Southern California with her handsome sweetheart, their purry ninja kitty named Sophie Grace, and their two betta fish named Jean-Michel Fisquiat and Frida Fishie Kahlo.

Official Bio

Andrea J. Loney’s works include the Caldecott Honor winning picture book DOUBLE BASS BLUES, the Lee and Low New Voices Award winning and an NAACP Award nominated picture book biography TAKE A PICTURE OF ME, JAMES VANDERZEE!, the picture book BUNNYBEAR, an ALA Rainbow List title, and middle-grade chapter book biography VIP STACEY ABRAMS: VOTING VISIONARY. Her work can also be found in the critically-acclaimed children’s poetry anthology NO VOICE TOO SMALL: FOURTEEN YOUNG AMERICANS MAKING HISTORY. Her upcoming books include picture book biography CURVE AND FLOW: THE ELEGANT VISION OF LA ARCHITECT PAUL R. WILLIAMS (Knopf, Fall 2022), and futuristic chapter book series ABBY IN ORBIT (Albert Whitman and Company, October 2022). 

Raised in a small New Jersey town by an African-American mother and a Panamanian/Jamaican father, Andrea spent most of her childhood reading books and writing her own stories. She received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at New York University, ran away with The Big Apple Circus for a year, and then took an Amtrak train across the country to Hollywood. For over a decade, she worked for the film, television, and gaming industries, mostly at The Walt Disney Company. 

Now, she teaches computer science courses at a local community college, and writing classes at organizations around the country. She also travels across the country to speak and present at schools, libraries, and conferences. And now she travels by plane (it’s much faster!). 

Andrea lives in Los Angeles, California with her towering stacks of picture books, her devoted family, and their incredibly spoiled pets.

NINE FUN FAVORITES

Favorite Color:
Purple

Favorite Animal:
Two-Toed Sloth

Favorite Animal That I’m Allowed To Keep Inside:
Cat

Favorite Food Made By My Grandma:
Plantains

Favorite Video Game:
Animal Crossing

Favorite Thing To Do On Saturday Morning:
Sleep in until 7:30 am

Favorite Place to Walk In Nature:
Santa Monica Beach at sunset

Favorite Way to Cheer Myself Up:
My trampoline (get it? UP?)

Favorite Musical Instrument To Play:
My heart-shaped kalimba