To learn more, visit lewisbuzbee.comLewis Buzbee is a fourth generation California native. He began writing in 1972, at the upripe age of 15, after reading the first chapter of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, and unfortunately, things haven't improved since then. He sold his first two short stories in 1979 and has been published, and unpublished, since then. He's worked as, in this order, a dishwasher, a bookseller, a publisher, a caterer, a bartender, and a teacher of writing. He and his wife, the poet Julie Bruck, live with their daughter Maddy in San Francisco, just half a block from Golden Gate Park. His books for adults include The Yellow Lighted Bookshop, Fliegelman's Desire, After the Gold Rush, and First to Leave Before the Sun. His first novel for middle grade readers, Steinbeck's Ghost, was published in 2008 by Feiwel and Friends and was selected for these honors: a Smithsonian Notable Book, a Northern California Book Award Nominee, the Northern California Independent Booksellers' Association Children's Book of the Year, and the California Library Association's John and Patricia Beatty Award. His second middle-grade novel, The Haunting of Charles Dickens, won the Northern California Book Award, was nominated for an Edgar Award, and was chosen as a Judy Lopez Memorial Award honor book. His new middle grade novel, Bridge of Time, is now out in paperback, and a new nonfiction book, Blackboard: A Personal History of the Classroom, has just been released.