Amanda LaPera

ABOUT AMANDA

For thirteen years, Amanda LaPera grew up in the small rural community of Lake Los Angeles, where she, much like her characters, was disappointed to learn there wasn’t a lake and everything she planted died. She and her friends survived, buoyed by resilience and determination. Now her hobbies include watching hummingbirds in her yard surrounded by actual trees, playing board games with her husband, taunting her sons, and appeasing her dogs. She has sworn off succulents, because she believes they belong in the desert.

Amanda LaPera is a national award-winning author. Her first book, Losing Dad, Paranoid Schizophrenia: A Family’s Search for Hope won a Silver IBPA Award, was a Quarter Finalist in the BookLife Prize and a Finalist in the Readers’ Favorite Awards. Because of her family’s experience, she devoted ten years to serving on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Orange County affiliate. She recently released a sequel, Finding Dad, Paranoid Schizophrenia: An End to the Search. She teaches English and is a member of the California Writers Club and the Southern California Writers Association.

She is currently working on her Desert of Dreams Series, coming-of-age stories set in the California High Desert during the 1980s and 90s.