Posey, Lee

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POSEY, Lee

PERSONAL: Married. Education: Graduate of Davidson College and Georgia State University. Hobbies and other interests: Gardening, bike riding.

ADDRESSES: Home—Alexandria, VA. Agent—c/o Peachtree Publishers, Ltd., 1700 Chattahoochee Avenue, Atlanta, GA 30318-2112.

CAREER: Education policy consultant and author.

AWARDS, HONORS: Parents' Choice Silver Award and KIND (Kids in Nature's Defense) Award, both for Night Rabbits.

WRITINGS:

Night Rabbits (children's book), illustrated by Michael Montgomery, Peachtree Press (Atlanta, GA), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Education policy analyst and author Lee Posey has written since childhood. When asked in an online interview for Peachtree Press just what inspires her to write, Posey replied that "I think writing is really an act of sharing. Something interesting, or beautiful, or sad, or happy is inside you, and you want someone else to experience it with you. I usually start with an image . . . and what I write comes from exploring emotions associated with the image."

Posey's first book, Night Rabbits, is a children's book aimed at four-to-eight-year-olds. In it, a little girl named Elizabeth watches the rabbits scamper across the yard on hot summer nights when she's unable to sleep. Her love for the animals is in direct conflict with her father's frustration at the rabbits' destruction of his manicured lawn. Posey's message to children is that you can fight for the things that matter to you, while her message to parents is a reminder that children can feel very deeply about things their parents may not always understand.

J. D. Biersdorfer, in a review for the New York Times, commented that Posey "tells the tale with a hint of laid-back regionalism in her refreshingly unhurried storytelling." Booklist contributor Hazel Rochman wrote that, "true to the child's point of view, the bond between father and daughter is as tender as the nature story." Julie Bookman noted of Posey's story in a review for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that "the mood, language, and gentle pace produce magical results."