Olivia Gold

Children’s writer Olivia Gold, author of the humorous middle- grade novel Hidden, is also an ELA teacher for seventh graders and the founder of UPBEAT ELA, an online platform that has helped more than 90,000 teachers bring fun and learning into their own middle-school classrooms. Olivia has enjoyed writing “books” since she was five years old when she often stapled together sheets of paper and wrote inside the pages. Her seventh-grade students inspired her to write her debut novel so she would have a funny, suspenseful, and positive book to read aloud to them. She hopes her young readers come away from her story feeling encouraged to pursue their passions long after the book is closed. Olivia lives in Orlando, Florida, with her husband and their three children, along with two sheep, four ducks, five roosters, ten hens, two cats, two dogs, and a miniature zebu.