Maria De JongMaria de Jong grew up in Aotearoa New Zealand before settling in Italy. Initially she taught English in Turin, where she also cultivated a sideline designing and making costumes for a dance-theatre company. She was living and studying literature in Fankfurt when East and West Germany reunified, and later relocated for a few years to teach near Bosa, Sardinia. Her two children were born in Rome; while working there as a translator she began writing for middle grade readers, but things only got serious after yet another relocation, this time to Amsterdam, where she currently copyedits, cycles and fabulates for her inner twelve-year-old. Read More Read Less