Tanya Lee Stone
Program Director
Biography
Dr. Tanya Lee Stone started teaching at Champlain in 2008. As a professor, she encourages students to “prioritize process over product,” and “embrace the power of play” in their work. As a former editor and current author, Stone brings long-held connections in the publishing world into her classrooms, inviting authors, artists, editors, and agents to engage directly with students. She teaches Professional Pathways to Publishing, Intro to Writing and Publishing, Writing Children’s Literature, Middle-Grade and Young Adult Literature, and others.
Stone is the author of more than 100 books for children and young adults. She is best known for telling true stories of people who have been missing from our histories, with themes of empowering girls and women threaded throughout her body of work.
Her books have earned many awards, including an NAACP Image Award, Sibert Medal, Golden Kite, Boston Globe-Horn Book, NCTE Orbis Pictus, and NPR Best Books. Her YA novel, A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl, is an ALA Top 100 Banned Books of the Decade. Stone’s articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Horn Book, and Publishers Weekly. She often speaks on topics of writing, nonfiction, and censorship.
Some of Tanya Lee Stone’s Books
- Remembering Rosalind Franklin: The Discovery of the Double Helix Structure of DNA (Little Brown/Christy Ottaviano Books, 2024)
- Peace is a Chain Reaction: How World War II Japanese Balloon Bombs Brought People of Two Nations Together (Candlewick Press, 2022)
- Pass Go and Collect $200: The Real Story of How Monopoly Was Invented (Macmillan/Christy Ottaviano Books, 2018)
- Girl Rising: Changing the World One Girl at a Time (Penguin Random House/Wendy Lamb Books 2017)
- The House that Jane Built: A Story about Jane Addams (Macmillan/Christy Ottaviano Books 2015)
- Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles (Candlewick, 2014)
- Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?: The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell (Macmillan/Christy Ottaviano Books, 2013)
- Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream (Candlewick, 2010)
- The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie: A Doll’s History and Her Impact on Us (Viking, 2010)
- Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote (Macmillan/Christy Ottaviano Books, 2008)
- Sandy’s Circus: A Story about Alexander Calder (Viking, 2008)
- A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl (Penguin Random House/Wendy Lamb Books, 2006)
Distinctions & Awards
NAACP Image Award, Robert F. Sibert Medal
Recommended Reading, Listening & Viewing
- Gilbert, Elizabeth. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. Artists, writers, creative folks of any kind–have this book on hand. You won’t regret it. There is nothing earth-shattering in here but it is filled with beautiful reminders and nudges to honor your own process and get unstuck when you feel stuck.
- Bayles, David & Orland, Ted. Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking. I have given this book to more people I can count. It’s one of those books you need on hand whenever you are experiencing imposter syndrome or feeling any pangs of “I’m not good enough” to create your art–whatever form it takes.
- Edited by Marcus, Leonard. Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom.
This book contains a collection of letters that the innovative and inimitable editor Ursula Nordstrom sent to artists and writers she worked with over many decades. This collection lets us in to the often unseen world of communication and process that happens in that ever-important relationship between editor and artist.
Curriculum Vitae
READ MY CV
Favorite Quote
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
