Rachna Gilmore is the author of several children’s picture book including My Mother Is Weird, and the highly acclaimed Lights For Gita and Roses for Gita. Her first children’s novel, A Friend Like Zilla, was short-listed for the Mr. Christie Book Award, the International Reading Association’s 1996 Children’s Book Award, and was a regional winner of the Ontario Silver Birch Award. Rachna’s books are sold internationally with translations in French, Danish, Spanish, Catalan, German, Belgian, as well as dual language editions of English with Arabic, Tamil, Chinese, Somali, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati and Turkish.

She also writes adult fiction under the pseudonym Rachna Mara. Her collection of interconnected short stories, Of Customs and Excise, was short-listed for the Best First Book, 1992 Commonwealth Book Awards, Canada and the Caribbean Region, as well as the 1993 Ottawa-Carleton Book Award.

Rachna has given many readings and workshops at schools and libraries across the country. During the past two years, she has conducted creative writing workshops at several schools through the Ontario Arts Council’s Artists In Education Program.

Born in India, Rachna has lived in England and Prince Edward Island, and now lives, works and plays in Ottawa with her husband, two daughters and a talkative cat. She enjoys walks in the country, gardening and travelling.

In the fall of 1999, Rachna won the Governor General award for Children’s Literature for her book, A Screaming Kind of Day. Other recent books include A Gift for Gita, the third and last “Gita” book, and Fangs and Me and Ellen’s Terrible TV Troubles, both First Flight Chapter Books for ages 7 and up. Her novel, Mina’s Spring of Colours, for children aged 8 and up, is due to be released this spring.

She currently has several projects on the go, including a fantasy novel for children aged 7-10. Please visit Rachna's own web site at www.makersgallery.com/gilmore