Hello there! Thanks for stopping by!
I’m Mae Respicio (Listen here for how to pronounce it! 😊) This pic is of me in my Northern California bowl-cut days. (I’ve tortured my kids with this same hairdo, btw.) As with most things in my life, this website is a work-in-progress. For non-spammy news and the occasional typo, sign up here for my very infrequent newsletter.
Raise your hand if you ever had this haircut!
Short(ish) but Snazzy(ish) Bio
Mae Respicio is an award-winning author of books for young readers, including The House That Lou Built, which received the Asian/Pacific American Library Association Honor Award and was named an NPR Best Book. Inspired by her Filipino American childhood, Mae's stories celebrate all the ways that kids find their place in the world. Her latest, Isabel in Bloom, was praised by The New York Times as a “sweet and heartfelt novel [that] explores how bumpy beginnings can offer chances for new growth.” She’s also written over a dozen nonfiction books for kids. Mae lives in California with her husband, sons, one rascally dog, and two sweet pet rats.
Raise your hand if you love to read!
Rambling Bio
Mae is author of the middle grade novels The House That Lou Built, Any Day With You, and How to Win a Slime War (out September 2021). She is the past recipient of a PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship and has been a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. Her writing & photography has been featured in many print (remember print?!) and online publications including Pregnancy Magazine, Working Mother Magazine, Patagonia, Pottery Barn Kids, Red Tricycle and The Bigger the Better the Tighter the Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image, and Other Hazards of Being Female (Seal Press), and she worked with the Filipino-American community of Los Angeles to edit the nonfiction book Images of America: Filipinos in Los Angeles (Arcadia Publishing). For nearly a decade, Mae also worked at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, developing, implementing, and overseeing top notch literary events, creative and screenwriting courses, and helping to build a thriving literary community. She lives with her family in the suburban wild of Northern California with her husband and sons, their rascally dog, and two very smart pet rats.
Ginzu Steak Knives Bio
In addition to middle grade novelist Mae's had lots of fun jobs including: Assistant to 2 Academy-Award Nominated Directors; Worst Waitress Ever; Ginzu Steak Knives Seller; Magazine Telemarketer; Film Studio Video Tape Cataloguer (remember video tapes?); Fancy Hollywood Screenwriter’s Assistant; Studio Coverage Writer; Corporate-Communications-Facebook-Updater-Slash-Newsletter-Writer-Minion; On-Air Promotions Writer; Parenting Website Content Editor, After-School Writing Teacher; and UCLAx Creative Writing Program Administrator. However, her favorite "job" is as a mom to 2 awesome teen boys, 1 rascally pup named Riggs, and 2 furry potatoes (aka pet rats) named Bubbie and Mochi. She lives with her human and furry family in the suburban wilds of Northern California.
Visiting the first tiny house built in the U.S. (circa 1993) while researching The House That Lou Built, a kids’ novel about a strong, creative Filipino American girl whose big dream is to build a tiny house.