About

Interested in booking a school or library visit? Please contact Lisa Nadel at Lonni Lane Marketing at lonnilanemarketing@gmail.com, and visit their site here for a list of talks.

Rights requests may be directed to Jessica Regel at Helm Literary at jess@helmliterary.com.

THIRD PERSON BIO (if that’s your thing):

I. W. Gregorio (she/her) is a practicing surgeon by day, award-winning YA writer by night.  Her debut novel, None of the Above was a Lambda Literary Finalist, a Publishers Weekly Flying Start, and named to the ALA Rainbow List, among other honors. It has also been banned by the Leander, TX School District, and is on the infamous “Krause List” that Texas Rep. Matt Krause worries “might make students feel discomfort.” 

Her second novel, This is My Brain in Love, was an Amazon Best Book, and won the 2021 Schneider Family Book Award.  She is proud to be board member of interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth, and is a founding member of We Need Diverse Books™ and its former VP of Development. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, NewsweekSan Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, New York Daily News, Scientific American and Journal of General Internal Medicine, among others. A recovering ice hockey player, she lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

TEN THINGS MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ABOUT ILENE:

 

  1. I grew up in the town of Utica, NY, which is perhaps most famous for being the home of the F.X. Matt Brewing Company, which produces the Kirkland line of beers sold at Costco. One notable local invention is the “Utica crib,” a restraining device used at the Utica Psychiatric Center which, coincidentally, is the landmark that drew my family to the area in the first place (my grand-uncle was a psychiatrist).
  2. When I was eight, I went to visit Niagara Falls with my grandparents. Somewhere during the car ride, one of the earpieces fell off my glasses, so when I tried to look over the edge of the Maid of the Mist my poor specs fell right into Niagara River. Good times.
  3. My grandparents raised me, which explains my famous “fashion backward” style. I once walked into an office visit and was pleasantly surprised to find that I was wearing the same shoes as my nonagenarian patient.

    shoea
    Twinsies!
  4. I have a lifelong aversions to raw mushrooms, though I have a secret affection for cream of mushroom soup when it’s used in my grandmother’s tuna casserole. It’s a texture thing.
  5. I didn’t realize that Taco Bell wasn’t real Mexican food until I went to college.
  6. Even though I write contemporary YA, the genre of my heart is still fantasy. The highlight of my adolescence was going to meet Lloyd Alexander and Susan Cooper, and one of the highlights of my adulthood was meeting Peter S. Beagle at NY Comic Con last year. Now I just have to hunt down Robin McKinley, Mercedes Lackey and Megan Whalen Turner and my life will be complete. (Edited to add: I MET MEGAN WHALEN TURNER AND SHE WAS AMAZING!!!)

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    Unabashed fangirling happened here.
  7. For a short time, inspired by Ellen Raskin’s The Westing Game, I wanted to be an ornithologist. Thus, there was a period when the sexiest thing ever = a guy who could identify bird song (thankfully for my husband, I have since grown out of this fetish).
  8. During high school, I played piano for a school play called Deadwood Dick, which our theater director apparently thought was a perfectly appropriate title for teens.
  9. I am a former Mathlete, Science Olympian and Writing Club member. The only thing keeping me from the Nerd Quadfectra is that I really, really suck at chess.

    Portrait of the author as a young nerd.
    Portrait of the author as a young nerd.
  10. I’m a crier. I cry when I’m sad, I cry when I’m relieved, and quite often I cry when I’m happy as well. Places I’ve cried: In the passenger seat of a car while my daughter was watching Toy Story 3 behind me. On the hospital floor after examining a dying patient. At my wedding, while listening to my sister-in-law sing Monteverdi.

Have another question? Drop me a line!

4 thoughts on “About

  1. Read None of the Above over three days and it was so empowering. For any person who doesn’t feel like they fit entirely in the binary, I feel like this is a voice where there are few, and I greatly appreciate that. Great read!

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