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Michele Young-Stone

Michele Young-Stone is an American novelist born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1971. She has written two novels, The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors (Random House, 2010) and Above Us Only Sky (Simon & Schuster, 2015). According to Publisher's Weekly, "Young-Stone is a very fine writer who has created a host of endearing losers—young, old, literate, and simple, all full of longing. What she does best is portray the incredulousness of the unlucky." Of her second novel, Library Journal wrote, "Young-Stone has written a novel that's both fanciful and brutally realistic, soaring as it does between angelic beings and heartless dictators. From America to Lithuania, from past to present, this is a heart-wrenching tale for literary fiction fans and particularly for readers interested in World War II."

Young-Stone spent her formative years in the suburb of Chester, Virginia. At age seventeen, she moved to Richmond, Virginia where she attended Virginia Commonwealth University, earning her B. A. in English (1992). She returned from 1994 to 1995, graduating with a Masters of Teaching Secondary English. After teaching high school and middle school English in Nottoway and Henrico counties in Virginia, she returned to Virginia Commonwealth University (2002-2005) to study fiction writing full time. She completed a thesis that would become her first novel.

Her third novel is under contract with Simon & Schuster.

She currently lives with her husband and son in North Carolina.