Biography

Paula Yoo is an award-winning author of a dozen children’s and young adult books, a TV writer and executive producer who has sold several pilots to Amazon, Hulu, and Peacock, and has written for over a dozen TV shows from NBC’s The West Wing to The CW’s Supergirl.

Paula’s debut YA nonfiction book, From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement, received five starred reviews and won many awards, including the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Honor, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Honor, and was longlisted for the National Book Award.

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 has received starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Horn Book, School Library Journal, and the Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books.

Paula lives with in Los Angeles with her family and three cats. Paula graduated with a B.A. 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. As a former journalist, Paula wrote for The Seattle Times, The Detroit News, and PEOPLE Magazine.

When she’s not writing, Paula is also a professional freelance violinist who performs regularly with many orchestras in Southern California and has toured and recorded with such national acts as No Doubt, Fun, and Il Divo.