BARBARA DANA is an award-winning author of books for children and young adults. Her books include Zucchini, Zucchini Out West, Crazy Eights, Necessary Parties, Rutgers and the Water Snouts, Spencer and his Friends and Young Joan, a historical novel based on the life of Joan of Arc. Her new novel, A Voice of Her Own: Becoming Emily Dickinson, is available March 1, 2009 (HarperCollins Publishers).

She is the co-editor of the recent release, Wider than the Sky: Essays and Meditations on the Healing Power of Emily Dickinson. She co-wrote the television adaptation of her novel, Necessary Parties, for PBS.

Other screenplays include Chu-Chu and the Philly Flash, and T.G.I.F. Her first play, War in Paramus, premiered in New York in the fall of 2005 a