SUPER SHORT BIO:

Cindy L. Rodriguez is a senior editor for an educational publisher and an award-winning author of children’s books. Her titles are When Reason Breaks (2015), “I’m a Survivor” from Life Inside My Mind: 31 Authors Share Their Personal Stories (2018), Volleyball Ace (2020), Drill Team Determination (2021), Gymnastics Payback (2021), The Doomed Search for the Lost City of Z (2022), Three Pockets Full: A Story of Love, Family, and Tradition (2022), and The Mount Everest Disaster of 1996 (2023). Cindy, who is of Puerto Rican and Brazilian descent, is also a former journalist and public school teacher. When she’s not working or writing, she is hanging out with her family and two dogs in Connecticut. She is represented by Tricia Lawrence from the Erin Murphy Literary Agency.

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THE DETAILS:
I was born in Chicago on December 7, 1971 and lived there for the first 12 years of my life. My family then moved to Connecticut, where I attended Bethel High School and graduated in 1988 from Crosby High School in Waterbury. In 1993, I graduated from UConn with a degree in journalism and English. In 2007, I completed my master’s degree in English at CCSU.

While at UConn, I worked long days at The Daily Campus, the student-run newspaper. There, I met some of my best friends and fell in love with journalism. After graduating from UConn, I worked as a reporter at The Hartford Courant for a total of five years and as a researcher for The Boston Globe for two years.

In 2000, I took a leap of faith and left journalism to become a teacher. After completing the state’s Alternate Route to Certification, I was hired to teach 8th grade language arts at Portland (CT) Middle School. After three years, I left Portland and took a one-year leave from teaching to work on my master’s degree full-time.

After my year of graduate work, I returned to teaching. I was hired by the West Hartford school district to teach 7th grade language arts at King Philip Middle School.

Six years later, and after earning a second certification through another alternate route program run by Albertus Magnus College, I moved to Hall High School to be the reading teacher/specialist. I then moved back to middle school (KP & Sedgwick) as a literacy specialist. In 2022, I left teaching, after 21 years, to work as a Senior Editor for Curriculum Associates, an educational publisher.

I am also a founder of Latinxs in Kid Lit, which has been celebrating children’s literature by/for/about Latinxs since 2013. I have presented at numerous local, state, and national literary festivals and conferences about reading, teaching, and children’s literature.

When Reason Breaks is my first novel. I also have an essay titled “I’m a Survivor” in the anthology Life Inside My Mind: 31 Authors Share Their Personal Struggles (Simon Pulse 2018). My essay about depression in the Latinx community was noted as a stand-out in the anthology’s Kirkus review. Next, I wrote Volleyball Ace, Drill Team Determination, and Gymnastics Payback, all part of the Jake Maddox series published by Capstone/Stone Arch Books. In 2022, The Doomed Search for the Lost City of Z, a graphic novel from Capstone, was released, along with my award-winning picture book debut, Three Pockets Full: A story of love, family, and tradition, from Cardinal Rule Press. In 2023, The Mount Everest Disaster of 1996, another graphic novel from Capstone, was published.

I am represented by Tricia Lawrence from the Erin Murphy Literary Agency.