Author. Screenwriter. Musician.
Paula Yoo 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, YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Honor, Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, 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 nonfiction book, RISING FROM THE ASHES: LOS ANGELES, 1992. EDWARD JAE SONG LEE, LATASHA HARLINS, RODNEY KING, AND A CITY ON FIRE, will be published on May 7, 2024 by Norton Young Readers.
Her debut 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). The paperback version along with a teacher's guide is now available.
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 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 also works as 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 also appeared in national TV show and commercial music spots.
Paula lives with her family and cats in Los Angeles, California.