Anica Mrose Rissi is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books for kids and teens, including the Anna, Banana chapter book series; the middle grade collection Hide and Don’t Seek: And Other Very Scary Stories; the picture book Love, Sophia on the Moon; and the young adult novel Nobody Knows But You. Her latest book, Wishing Season, is a middle grade novel about friendship and loss, set on the Maine island where she grew up. Anica’s essays have been published by The Writer and the New York Times, and she plays fiddle in and writes lyrics for the band Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves. She currently lives near Princeton, New Jersey, with her very good dog, Sweet Potato.

Anica loves visiting schools and talking with kids and adults about all stages of the writing process, from ideas and drafting to revisions and beyond. She teaches in the Writing for Children & Young Adults low-residency MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and is available for in-person and virtual writing workshops and presentations for groups of all sizes and ages.

NEW! Girl Reflected in Knife, a YA novel that weaves together concepts of fantasy and reality and unravels notions of logic and time, about a heartbroken teen who tells a desperate lie and starts to lose track of her own truth. Coming in April 2026. Available for preorder now!

NEW! Subscribe to The Eavesdrop, a free quarterly newsletter in which Anna-Marie McLemore, Emily X.R. Pan, Sara Ryan, Nova Ren Suma, and I (five multi-published authors who are also close friends) share the ins and outs of our creative processes, go deep on craft, and nerd out about publishing and other obsessions.

Now booking virtual and in-person AUTHOR VISITS for 2025 and 2026. For more information, please see the school visits page.