Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

Ghostwriter, Editor, & Publishing Consultant

Specialties: Middle Grade and Young Adult Novels, Picture Books, Children’s Nonfiction/Biography (all ages), Memoirs, Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism

Elizabeth is an award-winning writer who has published over 40 books for young people, from picture books to middle grade novels, biographies, and historical nonfiction. Her publishers include Penguin USA, HarperCollins, Random House, Little Brown, and Scholastic. She has adapted screenplays into novels for Laika Studios (ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls) and created commissioned original works for the Estate of Laura Ingalls Wilder/HarperCollins (Mary Ingalls on her Own) and American Girl/Pleasant Company (The Jazzman’s Trumpet). Her Legend of the Ghost Dog has sold over 100,000 copies, and her picture book My Penguin Osbert has been translated into 9 languages. Elizabeth’s Balto and the Great Race has remained in print for 15 years and was just re-issued in an enhanced edition. Her Suddenly Supernatural series has been published in 5 countries and is included on a New York Public Library 100 Books to Read and Share list. Elizabeth’s past awards include the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrator’s Golden Kite Honor, the Western Writers of America Spur Award, the Minnesota Youth Reading Award, the Alice Curtis Desmond Award, and the School Library Media Specialists’ Rip van Winkel Award.

Elizabeth is an editorial advisor to Walker Books, has worked as a project editor and literary consult for Oxford University Press, an editorial consultant and writer for One Hundred Robots, Inc., and Benchmark Education. Elizabeth also worked for a top New York literary agency for 8 years. Her experience in publishing, as a writer, and as an editor gives her detailed knowledge of the expectations and criteria for manuscripts in today’s demanding traditional publishing market. Elizabeth also gives seminars that provide an overview of writing and publishing children’s books and teaches writing workshops for both children and adults.