Dhonielle Clayton spent most of her childhood under her grandmother’s table with a stack of books. She hails from the Washington, D.C. suburbs on the Maryland side. She earned an MA in Children’s Literature from Hollins University and an MFA in Writing for Children at the New School. She taught secondary school for several years. Now, she is a librarian at Harlem Village Academies and co-founder of CAKE Literary, a creative kitchen whipping up decadent — and decidedly diverse — literary confections for middle grade, young adult, and women’s fiction readers. Her debut novel TINY PRETTY THINGS with Sona Charaipotra hits shelves in 2015 from Harper Teen, and her debut fantasy series THE BELLES comes in 2016 from Disney/Hyperion. She is represented by Victoria Marini at ICM/Gelfman Schnieder. Twitter: @brownbookworm