“Maria Padian was born in New York, but when she was five years old she moved to “the country” which was New Jersey in 1960. She grew up on an acre of land and was allowed to roam with her brother.” ( Padian) Both of her parents immigrated to the U.S. “Her father was Irish and her mother Spanish. She didn’t even learn English until she was five years old. Maria Padian says that her mother was like J.Lo, beautiful, a great dancer, and a lot of fun. Maria’s mother would not buy her any toy she wanted but would buy her any book she wanted.” (Padian) This led to Maria’s big imagination. Her career goal of becoming a writer started at a very young age.
“After she graduated high school, she went to a college at Middlebury College in Vermont. Maria loved Middlebury. She had wonderful teachers and they taught her that to be a good writer she had to be a good reader. In between her junior and senior year she attended the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Vermont.”( Padian) This conference was a
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She moved there to read more and earn her Master 's degree. Within a year she had her Master’s degree and met her future husband, Conrad Schneider. She also got her first real job as a news reporter and broadcaster for a radio station in Charlottesville. During the 1980’s she and Conrad lived in Atlanta, Georgia and Washington D.C., where she also worked as a press secretary for a member of the U.S. congress. But in 1991, they decided to start a family. They put the city life behind them and moved to Brunswick, Maine. Here she writes and text her kids, who are in college.”( Padian)
“Maria’s first book, Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress, won an American Library Association Notable Book Award for Young Adults and was a summer read recommendation in Parade. This book speaks to Maria’s talent as a young adult author. She is willing to tackle the big issues but writes in a style that appeals to kids.”