Liana Gardner

Liana Gardner is the multi-award-winning author of The Journal of Angela Ashby, Speak No Evil and 7th Grade Revolution. The Bram Stoker Awards Nominee has won numerous awards and accolades for her young adult and middle grade books, including two Pearson Prize Teen Choice Awards for the first two books in her Misfit McCabe series (Misfit McCabe and Nowhere Feels Like Home). 7th Grade Revolution – her debut novel – received a long list of honours including 2018 Silver Falchion Award Finalist in Best Juvenile, 2018 American Fiction Awards Winner in Preteen Fiction (Ages 10-12), 2018 International Book Awards Finalist in Children’s Fiction and 2018 Digital Book World Awards Finalist in Best Book (Children’s).

The daughter of an artist and a rocket scientist, Liana has blended traits of both into her zany yet pragmatic writing. Gardner has been fighting a battle against lymphoma and leukaemia, which has meant long periods of time at home, but she has used her imagination instead to take her wherever she desires to go.

Gardner discovered her love of writing after reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and identifying with lead character Jo, and after stints working as a primary school teacher and in IT she began pursuing her love of writing further. In 2017 her hugely successful debut novel 7th Grade Revolution was published, an exhilarating ride through past and present real events in North Carolina. When she isn’t busy writing, Gardner volunteers with high school students as part of EXP (expfuture.org), and organisation that helps young people expand and explore their future in the world.