How Not To Be Popular

Cecily Anne Paterson grew up overseas, going to boarding school in the Himalayan mountains and spending her holidays in the deserts of Pakistan. She's the author of five books for girls, including the CALEB Prize winner, Charlie Franks is A-OK, and the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semi-finalist, Invisible.Cecily Anne Paterson writes 'brave-hearted' stories for preteen and young teen girls, focusing on friendships, real life and growing up. Her reason for writing comes from her personal experience as a lonely 11 year old at boarding school overseas. Moving around, she always felt like an outsider. She didn't enjoy it at the time but it has turned out to be a useful thing as a writer. She hopes her characters will inspire girls to make great friendships and to be great friends themselves.Cecily's stories are all situated on the NSW South Coast, particularly in the beautiful Kangaroo Valley, where she lives with her family. Her writing has a distinctive, contemporary Australian voice that's both innocent and emotionally complex. Smart Girls Don't Wear Mascara is her first book to be published by Wombat Books, and is the first in the Kangaroo Valley School series.She enjoys reading, making things, eating chocolate and cuddling her very soft dog. She doesn't enjoy it when the dog barks constantly at the neighbours, or someone raids her chocolate stash.Her first book, Never Alone, a biography of a war orphan in Palestine, was short listed for the ACBOY Awards in 2006. Her memoir, Love Tears & Autism, won third prize in the same awards in 2012.Cecily is an experienced and accomplished speaker and presenter, who has also appeared on 'At The Table', a chat show on Channel 10. She loves to be invited to present writing workshops and author talks at schools and other events.