Books
Paula Yoo is a children’s picture book author and novelist. Her debut YA narrative non-fiction book about VINCENT CHIN, a Chinese American whose beating death at the hands of two white autoworkers in Detroit in 1982 galvanized the Asian-American civil rights movement and led to stronger federal hate crime legislation, is slated for publication by Norton Young Readers in 2020. Her children’s picture book biography, TWENTY-TWO CENTS: MUHAMMAD YUNUS AND THE VILLAGE BANK (Lee & Low Books 2014, illustrated by Jamel Akib), is a 2014 Junior Library Guild selection. Her YA novel GOOD ENOUGH (HarperCollins 2008) is a 2009 Honor Book of the Youth Literature of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. Her other books include the IRA Notable non-fiction picture book biographies SIXTEEN YEARS IN SIXTEEN SECONDS: THE SAMMY LEE STORY (Lee & Low Books 2005, illustrated by Dom Lee) and SHINING STAR: THE ANNA MAY WONG STORY (Lee & Low Books 2009, illustrated by Lin Wang), which also won the 2010 Carter G. Woodson Award from the National Council for the Social Studies. She is also the author of three Junior Library Guild selection early reader books, LILY’S NEW HOME, WANT TO PLAY?, and The PERFECT GIFT, from the Lee & Low Books “Confetti Kids” early reader series, illustrated by Shirley Ng-Benitez (Lee & Low Books 2016).
Television
Paula Yoo is a TV writer/producer. She is currently a Co-Executive Producer for THE PERFECTIONISTS, the spin-off series of PRETTY LITTLE LIARS (Freeform). Her other TV credits include SUPERGIRL (The CW), GREENHOUSE ACADEMY (Netflix), DEFIANCE (SyFy), MOZART IN THE JUNGLE (Amazon), EUREKA (SyFy) and THE WEST WING (NBC). She is an honoree of the 2012-13 Writers Guild of America Feature Access Project competition for movie/feature screenwriting. She is also an alumni of the Warner Bros. Television Writers’ Workshop.
Journalism
Paula is a former journalist 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’s Graduate School of Journalism and an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, where she was the recipient of the Larry Levis Fellowship in Fiction.