Jo was born in Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England. Even though she lived by the sea, she wasn’t a huge fan of sand. She still lives nearby with her husband, two daughters, and Ziggy Stardust the pug. A children’s illustrator all of her professional life, Jo is self-taught and works digitally. She has been a member of SCBWI since 2014. Although Jo has illustrated over forty children’s books to date, she is very proud of the fact that Bea by the Sea is her first authored book.Jo was born in Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England. Even though she lived by the sea, she wasn’t a huge fan of sand. She still lives nearby with her husband, two daughters, and Ziggy Stardust the pug. A children’s illustrator all of her professional life, Jo is self-taught and works digitally. She has been a member of SCBWI since 2014. Although Jo has illustrated over forty children’s books to date, she is very proud of the fact that Bea by the Sea is her first authored book.Yanitzia has published more than 500 books (novel, short stories, poetry, essays, plays), especially for children and young readers.Some of her books have been translated into English, Portuguese, Chinese, Bulgarian, Romanian, Croatian, and other languages.As a literary consultant and editor for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill, and other publishing companies, she has written series and collections of fiction and non-fiction books, teacher guides, student anthologies, and other educational materials for the US bilingual system.Fluent in Spanish, English and Italian, she has been a translator of more than 300 children’s books, including some classics of Anglo-Saxon children’s literature, such as the stories of Seuss, Berenstein Bears, Amelia Bedelia, Curious George, among others. She has also translated the former First Lady Laura Bush’s children’s literature book, and the Yellow Submarine book, an adaptation from The Beatles film.