Francesca Lia Block

Francesca Lia Block (born December 3, 1962) is an American writer of adult and young-adult literature: fiction, short stories, screenplays and poetry. She is known best for the Weetzie Bat series — named after its first installment and her first novel, which she wrote while a UC Berkeley student, Weetzie Bat (HarperColins, 1989). She is known for her use of imagery, especially in describing the city of Los Angeles. One New York Times Book Review critic said, "Block writes about the real Los Angeles better than anyone since Raymond Chandler." She won the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2005 for her contribution in writing for teens. 2Life Block was born in Los Angeles to a poet and a painter, their creativity an obvious influence on her writing. Another influence was her childhood love of Greek mythology and fairy tales. She left her birth city only to attend the UC Berkeley. She has often professed her love of Los Angeles, calling it a "jasmine-scented, jacaranda-purple, neon sparked city," which she has nicknamed in her books "Shangri-LA." She currently lives in Los Angeles with her daughter, Jasmine Angelina (about whom she wrote her book Guarding the Moon), her son Samuel Alexander, and her two dogs: a springer spaniel named Vincent Van Go Go Boots and a beagle mix named Thumper. While perhaps best known for her novels, Block is also a lifelong writer of poetry. Her first two books, Moon Harvest (1978) and Season of Green (1979), were small-press illustrated poetry collections, now out of prin