Naylor grew up during the Depression, graduating from a Junior College when she was 20. At 16, she wrote her first paying story (a short story in the church magazine. She got $4.67 for it.) When she was 18, she married and moved to Chicago two years later.
After her divorce, she took on a multitude of jobs: everything from a clinical secretary to an editorial assistant. Eventually, she returned to school at American University and got her BA. Though originally she planned to get her Master's in psychology, she became a writer instead, publishing her first children's book in 1965, The Galloping Goat and Other Stories.
She writes the first two drafts of all of her books by hand, and even does so in a specific chair. (Not that weird, as far as writer quirks go.) She says she plans to continue writing as long as she can hold a pencil.
Naylor has won a litany of awards, including the Newbery Medal and the Edgar Allan Poe Mystery Writers award. She's written over 100 books, including this week's book, Shiloh (which is part of a three book series.)
She doesn't have a whole lot out there in terms of social media, but she does run this blog about her Alice series.
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