Photo by Gregg Marx; Photoshopped by Tessa

Author, Francesca Lia Block is renowned for her groundbreaking novels and stories—postmodern, magic-realist tales for all ages. Her work transports readers through the harsh landscapes of contemporary life—to magic realms of the senses where love is always our saving grace.

Born in Los Angeles, where she still lives, Block writes fiction and non-fiction that pulsates with the language and images of the city's sprawling subculture. Many of her books including Weetzie Bat take place in L.A., a "Jasmine-scented, jacaranda-purple, neon sparked city," that Block likes to refer to as "Shangri-LA." Lauds a reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, "Block writes about the real Los Angeles better than anyone since Raymond Chandler."

Though grounded in the realities of L.A. and urban life—at both its grittiest and most beautiful—Block's work is otherworldly and almost transcendent in its reach. The daughter of a poet and a painter, Block has been influenced by the visual arts, by her childhood love of Greek myths and fairytales, as well as by music and dance. While at the University of California, Berkeley, Block's early influences expanded to include the magic-realist fiction of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende, as well as the modernist poetry of H.D. (Hilda Dolittle).

Block described her work as "contemporary fairy tales with an edge," where the real world and its trouble find solace through the alchemy of creative expression and love. She has received numerous awards, including the Margaret A. Edwards lifteime achievement award and the ALA Phoenix award for Weetzie Bat, as well as citations from the American Library Association, The New York Times Book Review, the School Library Journal, and her work has been published around the world, translated into many languages.