Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
2009 Maryland Author Award Winner

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is a prolific author of fiction and nonfiction for children, teens, and adults. She is perhaps best known as the author of Shiloh, which won the Newbery Medal in 1992, and for the Alice series. In writing about young adults, she displays strong empathy for their concerns and understanding of their feelings. Critics hail her ability to create believable, appealing characters and to write from a young person's point of view. Taken as a whole, Naylor's writings are notable for their great diversity, ranging from books about her own life, to fiction exploring contemporary problems facing young people. Naylor enjoys the change of pace that comes with varying her subjects and writing for different audiences. "I can never imagine myself writing only for children or only for adults," she commented. "I like to follow up a mystery story for the nine-to-twelve set with a contemporary novel for adults; after that perhaps I will do a picture book or a realistic novel for teens, or possibly a humorous book for children. The marvelous thing about writing is that I may play the part of so many different people--an old grandmother on one page, a young boy the next; a middle-aged man or a girl of fifteen. I feel most whole when I can look at a scene through the eyes of several different people."

She lives with her husband, Rex, in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and is the mother of two sons, both grown and married. She keeps up with readers of the Alice series on her blog, alicemckinley.wordpress.com