About Elizabeth Bluemle

Elizabeth Bluemle was born in Arizona and has since lived in Los Angeles, Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, and New York City. She has been an assistant to a television writer/producer, editor of a small press, creative director for a book packaging company, production manager for a literacy press, a volunteer literacy tutor, an elementary school teacher, and a school librarian. She has a master's degree in Education from Bank Street in NYC, and a master's in creative writing from Vermont College. She has lived in Vermont since 1996, when she opened The Flying Pig Bookstore (now in Shelburne, VT) with co-owner and stand-up comedian Josie Leavitt.

In 2002, Bluemle co-founded The Community WordPlay Project, a nonprofit effort to get new books into the hands of qualifying Vermont families, with friend and Vermont artist Sumru Tekin. Together, they created The Charlotte Town Players, a community theatre whose proceeds fund the WordPlay Project, and The Charlotte Book Shelf, a program that gives bookstore vouchers to families who use the Charlotte Food Shelf. So far, the organization has donated thousands of dollars in books to these programs and other Vermont and national literacy initiatives.

Bluemle is the author of My Father the Dog (illustrated by Randy Cecil), Dogs on the Bed (illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf), How Do You Wokka-Wokka? (illustrated by Randy Cecil), and Tap Tap Boom Boom (illustrated by G. Brian Karas), all from Candlewick Press.