Angela María Padrón may be the shortest person in her family but she's got giant aspirations. From the early days of doodling on the garage walls of her childhood home in New Jersey, to redesigning her high school logo, to sewing her own wedding dress, Angela has always been drawn to the arts (look - a pun!) Whether it's writing picture book stories and middle grade novels, playing music, singing, making crafts, or illustrating, Angela loves to create.

For 13 years, Angela worked as an art and English as a Second Language teacher. In 2011 she earned her third graduate degree, a MFA in Illustration at Academy of Art University, while working as a freelance developmental editor and writer for an educational publishing company and juggling the joyous responsibilities of raising a toddler. To the amazement of her husband, she did all this while somehow surviving on turkey sandwiches, fruit salad, and only a few minutes of sleep. When her superpowers wear off, Angela likes to relax at the beach with her family, read middle grade novels, watch sports, and talk about Star Wars. She can even perform the Jedi mind trick on you if you're not careful. Hey, these are not the droids you're looking for. Move along, people!

Angela likes the illustration styles of Eric Carle, Ezra Jack Keats, Leo Lionni, Denise Fleming, and Quentin Blake the most. For her own illustrations, Angela uses digital collage and digital painting. She scans textured or painted papers into the computer and then uses Photoshop and Corel Painter to manipulate the textures and mix them with digital paint. She draws inspiration from authors like David LaRochelle, Dan Gutman, Roald Dahl, Mike Lupica, Mo Willems, David Shannon, Bob Shea, and Bruce Coville to write picture books and middle grade fiction. Her story ideas vary, depending on what thoughts or memories pop into her mind, but she mostly writes humorous fiction, sports stories, stories with science fiction elements, and tales involving interesting animals or children of color. As if that weren't enough, Angela draws and paints portraits as well as abstract art. She loves using messy stuff, like pastels and charcoal, and also watercolor and acrylics. She's influenced by Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Michelangelo, and Romero Britto.

Angela is a proud member of the best organization in the world - the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) - and the most awesome critique groups in the universe. Well, she hasn't visited other planets in outer space, but she’s pretty sure that no alien can compare.