Marina Budhos is an author of award-winning fiction and nonfiction.

Her latest book, Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom & Science, co-authored with her husband Marc Aronson, was a 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Award Finalist, a finalist for the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction, and was cited by The New York Times as exemplary nonfiction for children.  Sugar is now taught in schools throughout the country, especially as a core text for the Common Core standards. Budhos and Aronson’s next co-authored young adult book, The Eyes of the World: A Story of A Man, A Woman, and A Camera, will be published in 2016 by Henry Holt and Company. Her next young adult novel, Watched, will be published in 2016 by Wendy Lamb/Random House.

 Ask Me No Questions, which has also been published in Germany and Korea, has received numerous honors, including ALA Best Books and Notable, winner of the first James Cook Teen Book Award, NY Public Library Books for the Teenage, Chicago Public Library's Best of the Best.  It is currently being developed as a feature film and Watched (2016) will be a follow up to that novel. Her most recent young adult novel, Tell Us We’re Home was praised by the New York Times as “elevated by writing that is intelligent and earnestly passionate” and is a Scholastic Book Club selection. Her nonfiction book, Remix: Conversations with Immigrant Teenagers, was re-released in 2007, and is used throughout the country in ELL classrooms, university classrooms, and as a companion text to her other works.

Ms. Budhos frequently gives talks and presentations about her books to schools and has links to many organizations, such as the Asian American Writers Workshop and Behind the Book, which creates opportunities for authors to have their work read and discussed in underserved communities in New York City.  Ask Me No Questions is now on core reading lists in schools throughout the country, and numerous immigrant, multicultural and Muslim organizations such as the American Immigration Council have featured her work as exemplary in illuminating the lives and stories of diverse young people. 

Ms. Budhos has also published the adult novels The Professor of Light and House of Waiting; her books have been published in Germany, Taiwan, Korea, Germany, and India and her short stories, articles, essays, and book reviews have appeared in publications such as The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The Antigonish Review, The Literary Review, The Nation, Dissent, Marie Claire, Redbook, Travel & Leisure, Ms., Los Angeles Times, and in numerous anthologies.

Ms. Budhos has received an EMMA (Exceptional Merit Media Award), a Rona Jaffe Award for Women Writers, and has twice received a Fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts. She has been a Fulbright Scholar to India, given talks throughout the country and abroad, and is currently an associate professor of English at William Paterson University.

Website: www.marinabudhos.com

Awards

• New Jersey Arts Council Fellowship(2007)
• New Jersey Arts Council Fellowship(2013)
• LA Times Book Award Finalist(2011)
• Fulbright Scholar to India(1992)

Employment

• Associate Professor at William Paterson University (September 2004 - )
• Associate Faculty at Goddard Low-Residency MFA Program (September 1996 - June 2000)

Degrees

• Bachelor of Arts in English-Creative Writing from Cornell University (June 1983)
• Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Brown University (June 1987)

Genres of Interest

Fiction, Creative nonfiction, Children's literature