Mara Bergman

Mara Bergman is an American children's author, poet and editor. Born in Bronx, New York, on leap year day, she grew up in Wantagh, Long Island, and attended Wantagh High School and the University of the State of New York at Oneonta, spending her third year studying at Goldsmiths College, London. Mara moved to England in 1983, and soon began to work for the children’s publisher Walker Books. When her three children, Marissa, Eva and Jonathan, were young she decided to start writing picture books, and her awards include the BookTrust Early Years Award and the Stockport Prize. In 2014, Mara won the Mslexia Poetry Pamphlet Prize and her collection The Tailor's Three Sons and Other New York Poems was published by Seren in 2015. Her first full collection, The Disappearing Room, was published in 2018 by Arc Publications. Her children's books have been translated into Finnish, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Hebrew.

Books

Bears, Bears Everywhere, illustrated by Helen Craig Orchard Books, 1997 Musical Beds, illustrated by Simon & Schuster, 2002 Glitter Kitty, illustrated by Lydia Monks Simon & Schuster, 2005 Snip Snap!, illustrated by Nick Maland Hodder Children's Books, 2005 Nick Mack’s Good Luck, illustrated by Jill Barton Walker Books, 2005 Sylvie's Seahorse, illustrated by Tor Freeman Walker Books, 2006 Oliver Who Would Not Sleep, illustrated by Nick Maland Hodder Children's Books, 2007 Happy, illustrated by Simona Sanfilippo Evans Brothers, 2008 Oliver Who Was Small But Mighty, illustrated by Nick Maland Hodder Children's Books, 2008 Yum, Yum, illustrated by Nick Maland Hodder Children's Books, 2009 Oliver Who Travelled Far and Wide, illustrated by Nick Maland Hodder Children's Books, 2009 Lively Elizabeth, illustrated by Cassia Thomas Hodder Children's Books, 2010 Oliver and the Noisy Baby, illustrated by Nick Maland Hodder Children's Books, 2011 Itchy Itch Itch, illustrated by Emily Bolam Bloomsbury Children's Books, 2012 Best Friends, illustrated by Nicola Slater Hodder Children's Books, 2014 The Tailor's Three Sons and Other New York Poems, Seren, 2015 Crossing Into Tamil Nadu, Templar, 2015 The Disappearing Room, 2018 The Tall Man and the Small Mouse, illustrated by Birgitta Sif, Walker Books, 2018 The Night We Were Dylan Thomas

Awards

Writers Bursary from South East Arts UK, 1995-96 Parent's Choice Award, 2005 Stockport Children's Book Award, 2006 BookTrust Early Years Award, 2009 Myslexia Poetry Pamphlet Competition, 2014 Templar Quarterly Poetry Prize, 2016