Author. Screenwriter. Musician.
Paula Yoo is an award-winning book author, TV writer/producer and feature screenwriter. She is also a former journalist, having worked for The Seattle Times, The Detroit News, and PEOPLE Magazine. She graduated with a B.A. cum laude in English from Yale University, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, where she was the recipient of the Larry Levis Fellowship in Fiction.
Paula is the author of 12 children’s books and Young Adult novels. Her books have won many awards, including the Boston-Globe Horn Book Award, the National Book Award Longlist for Young People's Literature, IRA Notables and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selections, plus starred reviews from Kirkus, Horn Book, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and School Library Journal. Her debut YA novel GOOD ENOUGH (HarperCollins 2008) received an Asian Pacific American Honor for Youth Literature. Her latest YA narrative non-fiction book is FROM A WHISPER TO A RALLYING CRY: THE KILLING OF VINCENT CHIN AND THE TRIAL THAT GALVANIZED THE ASIAN AMERICAN MOVEMENT (Norton Young Readers/W.W. Norton & Company, 2021). Her debut chapter book series with Lee & Low Books will be forthcoming. Her next YA nonfiction book, RISING FROM THE ASHES: HOW THE 1992 LOS ANGELES UPRISING BRIDGED TWO COMMUNITIES, will be published in Fall 2023 by Norton Young Readers.
Paula's TV credits include Freeform’s Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists, The CW’s Supergirl, SyFy’s Defiance and Eureka, Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle, and NBC’s The West Wing, and she has sold several TV pilots and feature scripts.
Paula is also a professional violinist, having played with the Southeast Symphony, Vicente Chamber Orchestra, Torrance Symphony, Glendale Philharmonic and Detroit Civic Symphony Orchestra. She has toured and recorded with bands such as Il Divo, No Doubt, Fun, Arthur Lee, Love Revisited, Spiritualized, and the King Crimson tribute band The Great Deceivers. She has appeared in national TV show and commercial music spots, including A&E’s The Two Coreys reality show and a United Airlines commercial. When she’s not writing or playing her violin, Paula loves hanging out with her family and cats in Los Angeles, California. (November 24, 2021)