Tui Sutherland

Tui T. Sutherland is named after a very noisy New Zealand bird. She was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and grew up in South America; she now lives in Boston with her husband and Sunshine, her ridiculous perfect dog. For several years she was an editor in children's book publishing in New York, working at Penguin and HarperCollins with authors such as Scott Westerfeld and Kate McMullan, on series including The Zack Files, Grail Quest, Midnighters, Warriors, and Spy Goddess. Tui is the author of more than 30 books for children and teens, ranging in age from sticker books and easy-to-reads (Meet Mo and Ella, Fun with Mo and Ella, both Grosset & Dunlap, 2002-03) to middle-grade and YA novels. Her first book for teens was This Must Be Love (an updated retelling of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, HarperTeen, 2004), followed by the supernatural/post-apocalyptic/mythology-centric Avatars YA trilogy (Book One: So This Is How It Ends, Book Two: Shadow Falling, Book Three: Kingdom of Twilight, published by Eos, 2006-08). Tui is also one of four authors working on the best-selling epic animal fantasy Warriors and Seekers books under the name Erin Hunter; her most recent titles in the series (Seekers Book One: The Quest Begins, Harper, 2008 and Seekers Book Three: Smoke Mountain, Harper, 2009) both hit the New York Times bestseller list. Under the pseudonym Rob Kidd she has written a five-book Pirates of the Caribbean spin-off series entitled Legends of the Brethren Court (Disney, 2008-09), and she wrote the novelization of the third movie, which was also on the New York Times bestseller list (although she's pretty sure Johnny Depp gets more credit for that than she does). Using the pseudonym Heather Williams, she wrote a Little House on the Prairie spin-off entitled Nellie Oleson Meets Laura Ingalls (Harper, 2007). She also writes romantic beach reads for teens under the pseudonym Tamara Summers, including He's With Me (Scholastic, 2007) and Save the Date (HarperTeen, 2008). Coming this September from HarperTeen is her newest Tamara Summers beach read, a vampire murder mystery/humorous romance entitled Never Bite a Boy on the First Date.