Sharon M. Draper

Educator, writer, and poet Sharon Mills Draper was born and raised in Cleveland. She earned a BA at Pepperdine University and an MA at Miami University of Ohio. Draper has taught high school English for more than 25 years and has won numerous teaching awards, including National Teacher of the Year.
 
In her writing, Draper engages a range of young adult experiences, often addressing difficult themes of abuse, racism, and disability. Her self-published poetry collections include Buttered Bones: Collected Poetry (1997) and Let the Circle Be Unbroken: Collected Poetry for Children and Young Adults (1997).
 
Her numerous young adult novels include the Jericho Trilogy, the Hazelwood Trilogy, the Sassy series and the Ziggy/Clubhouse Mysteries series. She is also the author of Tears of a Tiger (1994), which won an American Library Association Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award; Copper Sun (2006), which won a Coretta Scott King Literature Award; Out of my Mind (2010), which received a Bank Street College of Education Josette Frank Award as well as numerous statewide awards and has been translated into more than half a dozen languages; and the middle grade novel Out of My Heart (2021).
 
Draper’s books for educators include Teaching from the Heart (1997) and Not Quite Burned Out but Crispy Around the Edges (2001). She is the subject of KaaVonia Hinton’s Sharon M. Draper: Embracing Literacy (2008). She lives in Cincinnati.