Cecil Castellucci is the author of  several novels for young adults, including “Boy Proof,” “The Queen of Cool” and “Beige” (all on Candlewick Press) and her latest, “Rose Sees Red” (August 2010), on Scholastic Press.  

Her first graphic novel, “The Plain Janes,” launched the DC Comics Minx imprint and she was awarded the 2007 Shuster Award for best Canadian Comic Book Writer.  It was followed up by the sequel “Janes in Love.” Her first picture book, “Grandma’s Gloves,” is due out in August 2010.

Her short stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, The Eternal Kiss, Geektastic (which she co-edited) and Interfictions 2, among other anthologies and literary journals.  

Her books have been on the American Library Association’s (ALA’s) BBYA, Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, Great Graphic Novels for Teens lists, as well as the NYPL Books for the Teen Age and the Amelia Bloomer list.

Recently she was commissioned by ECM+ to write the libretto for an original opera with music composed by Andre Ristic, “Les Aventures de Madame Merveille,” which premiered in Montreal in May.

She was the recent recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship where she completed a new novel The Year of the Beasts due out in 2012.

She has participated in the Lincoln Center Directors Lab West and the Banff Centre for the Arts “Writing with Style” program and had both writing and directing assistantships at the Mark Taper Forum.

In 2006 she wrote and directed her first feature film, “Happy Is Not Hard To Be.”  It debuted in Los Angeles at the Alternative Screen series at the Egyptian Theatre.

Visit her online at castellucci.wordpress.com.