Annie Crawford

Hello! I'm Annie Crawford. I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but lived with my mother and grandmother in New York City until I was four. My grandma, whom I idolized, worked as an editor at what was then Harcourt Brace. She threw legendary parties for the authors and poets she worked with, and I can claim the distinction of having been chucked under the chin as a toddler by W. H. Auden, Katherine Anne Porter, Randall Jarrell and other mid-century luminaries! From as far back as I can remember, I loved books above all else. My dream was to be either a writer, an editor just like my grandma, or, if all else failed (I was a practical child), a librarian.

As it is wont to do, life took me on a detour. When I was four, my mother remarried and my life changed radically. We set off with my itinerant stepfather in an old milk truck, crisscrossing the North American continent from Alaska to Oaxaca, Mexico until we finally settled in Southern California when I was in high school.

I went on to college and grad school, majoring in Latin American Studies and Spanish, married a Mexican physicist and moved to Puebla, Mexico, where I lived for 20 years. There, when my kids went off to school, I finally got back to writing. I started out with short stories, one of which was published in translation. My first book-length project was a middle-grade/young adult novel titled The Ring of Leilani. This was followed by The Curse of the Jade Amulet, completed after I moved back to the U.S. and chosen as one of the ten finalists in the San Francisco-based Larsen-Pomada Literary Agency’s annual contest a few years ago. Both of these novels are available on Smashwords. I'm currently finishing up the first draft of a third novel.

For most of my professional life I’ve earned my keep doing translations and teaching English and Spanish grammar, composition, conversation and phonetics at the college level. These days I live in the beautiful rainy state of Washington with my wonderful new husband, where I write and work part-time as a court-certified Spanish interpreter. When I'm not interpreting or writing, you can find me hiking, doing yoga, reading, cooking and enjoying other hedonistic pursuits! Please visit me at my blog, Magic and the Muse.com.

Twitter: @annemcrawford
Facebook: Facebook profile
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/anne-crawford/20/820/193
Blog: http://www.magicandthemuse.com