Mini bio: Luisa Plaja was born in Glasgow, brought up in Sicily and London and now lives in Devon, England. She is a writer, editor, linguist and creative writing tutor with novels published by Penguin Random House and many others. She loves reading, writing and talking about reading and writing.
(Wondering about ‘Plaja’? The ‘j’ sounds like a ‘y’ and the name is pronounced like ‘plier’ in English, or the Spanish word ‘playa’, meaning ‘beach’. In fact, ‘plaja’ is a Sicilian word for ‘beach’.)
Full bio:
Luisa Plaja is a writer, editor and linguist. She has run book clubs and taught creative writing workshops in schools, libraries and online. She was the editor of the popular and long-running teen book site Chicklish. In addition to writing and editing fiction, she currently works as a copywriter in the travel industry.
Luisa grew up speaking English and Italian, sometimes at the same time. With a degree in Linguistics, she has a background in wordy jobs including dictionary editing, television subtitling and linguistic software development. She still works in localisation and translation of texts, specialising in UK English and other varieties of English.
Luisa’s last novels published in her own name were Diary of a Mall Girl, published by Curious Fox, and Kiss Date Love Hate, published by Penguin Random House. She has also published books under more than one pen name. Her novels been translated and published in the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Brazil, Germany, Turkey, Poland, Finland and Norway, and they are available as audiobooks in English. She has also written non-fiction and books for reluctant readers, taken part in an interactive e-book project, and has contributed a short story to a YA anthology.
Born in Glasgow and brought up in Sicily and London, Luisa Plaja now lives in Devon, England, and travels around as much as possible.