Gennifer Choldenko

Gennifer Choldenko was born in Santa Monica, California, and was the youngest of four kids, all of whom had big mouths. The only sibling who did not have the trademark Johnson big mouth was Gennifer's sister, Gina, who had Autism. Her parents workd very hard to try to figure out how to help Gina, but, as Gennifer puts it: "being the parent of a child with severe Autism is like riding a unicycle in an earthquake."

Since she was the youngest, Gennifer spent a lot of time by herself making up words, stories, songs, and jokes, none of which made a lot of sense. After graduating from Brandeis University with a degree in English, she went to work in advertising, but stopped after realising that all of her work was beginning to sound like the that of a big mouth twelve-year-old... At which point she went to Art School, but instead of getting her portfolio together, she wrote her first novel (she does her best work when she's supposed to be doing something else). Follow Gennifer at www.choldenko.com or on Twitter: @choldenko