 |
|
After graduation from Parry Sound (Ontario) High School, Chandra spent a semester in Madrid, Spain, followed by four years in Montreal studying English lit and art history. Then she headed to London, England, where she worked in an art bookstore on Charing Cross Road for two years.
When Chandra’s time in London was up, she wanted to live in another big city (and, fortunately, she has dual citizenship), so she crashed with a friend in Washington, D.C., for a month before taking up residence in Manhattan, where she lived and worked (in a vast combination of bookstores and publishing companies) for almost eight years. Her publishing experience there includes a year at Overlook Press; a long run at Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Penguin Group; freelance work for Knopf, Doubleday, and Bloomsbury Children’s Books; and being in on the ground with a start-up mystery publisher, Felony & Mayhem.
But, suddenly, she heard the call of Canada: a reasonably socialist country with an outdoorsy sensibility even in its cities, and a more mellow pace than that of New York City. In June 2006, Chandra left New York and settled in Toronto, where she edits and coordinates for the resource department of the United Church (which is so open-minded it hires people like her, who aren’t even members of the church).
Chandra loves reading, editing, old movies, browsing in bookstores, long walks, and seeing and corresponding with friends. She dabbles in knitting, baking, ice skating, and keeping her French in use. Because her boyfriend plays bluegrass banjo, she has become, much to her surprise, an enthusiastic amateur devotee of traditional American bluegrass music!
Chandra is currently a reader/editor for Gumboot Books Young Adult Fiction line which will be launched in September 2008.Birthday: February 13 Favourite Children's Books: The Twelve Dancing Princesses with Errol le Cain's illustrations The Library; The Friend both by Sarah Stewart and David Small The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch Brave Irene by William Steig The Tomten and the Fox by Astrid Lindgren The Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel The George & Martha books by James Marshall The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams The Secret Garden; The Little Princess both by Frances Hodgson Burnett |
