Biography

Everyone has a dream of leaving a mark in the world.  We have the power to do this if we dream big dreams, are willing to put our passions to work, and are not afraid to change lives. 

Amada Irma Perez changed her life after more than 25 years of being a classroom teacher for kindergarten through university graduate classes when she wrote her first story in her journal the summer of 1998 at the Southwest Writing Project  (SCWriP) at UCSB.  With the encouragement of her fellow writers and Sheridan Blau, the director she decided to publish it.  MY VERY OWN ROOM-Mi propio cuartito  (Children‘s Book Press, 2000) won numerous awards including the prestigious, Tomas Rivera Children’s Book Award, was inducted into the Latino Literature Archives of the University of Southwest Texas, San Marcos, and is given to every newborn in San Antonio, Texas through the  Library Foundation‘s “Born to Read” program.  It has sold more than  fifty thousand copies.

In 2002 her second autobiographical fiction bilingual picture book, MY DIARY FROM HERE TO THERE-Mi diario de aqua hasta alla (Children’s Book Press)_was also published and also won awards including the Pura Belpre Honor Book Award which is given  by  REFORMA through the American Library Association.

Her third book, NANA’S CHICKEN COOP SURPRISE-Nana, que sorpresa! (Children’s Book Press) is set to come out in Fall 2006.

Amada is a leading advocate of programs encouraging multicultural understanding  through the universal themes she explores in all of her books and through other projects at UCLA,UCSB, Cal State Long Beach, and the Global Learning Technology Network.  She has been a frequent presenter  at local, state, national, and international conferences as well as visiting schools, libraries, community centers, and bookstores for many years offering writing workshops as well as motivational  talks.

She lives in Ventura with her teacher husband, Arturo and their two dogs and has two grown sons, Marco and Nico.  She is writing more children’s books, poetry and is working on a novel.  She continues to dream big dreams while she travels all over the country and the world sharing her books with  anybody that wants to hear them.