Yvona Fast

Yvona Fast is an author of books, poems, articles, and newspaper columns. Her love of books and words led her first to become a librarian before she turned to writing. Her writing comes from varied experiences as an immigrant, as a person with a hidden disability trying to fit into a neurotypical world, as the child of Holocaust survivors, as someone with a deep spiritual life who loves the natural world of lakes and mountains, trees and forests, sun, rain and snow. Neurodiverse and hyperlexic, Yvona's love of language led to fascination by letters, words, poems, stories. She learned to read early, then brought stacks of books home from the public library. A first-generation immigrant American, Yvona lived on three continents and spoke three languages by the time she was ten. Yvona is an active member of the Adirondack Center for Writing, SCBWI, and many other writing groups and several critique groups. She has taken classes in writing for children through Highlights, the Children’s Book Academy, Lyrical Language Lab, Storyteller Academy, The Writing Barn, and many others. Her books include: Loon Summer Good in the Midst of Evil Garden Gourmet: Fresh & Fabulous Meals from your North Country Garden, CSA or Farmers' Market includes 275 seasonal recipes along with cooking tips, nutritional information and historical facts. Employment for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome or Non-Verbal Learning Disability: Stories and Strategies, JKP 2004 Different: a poetry chapbook, published by Foothills 2017 Adirondack Blue Seasons, a poetry chapbook published by CWP 2018 My Nine Lives: a Holocaust Memoir, co-authored with Dana Fast, Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada, 2011. Her weekly food column, North Country Kitchen, has run in two newspapers since 2004. She has spoken on issues of employment and disabilities to various groups, including the Vermont Parent Information Center and the Nonverbal Learning Disabilities Association. She has a Master's degree in Library Science and has written on many topics for various consumer magazines, including articles on career issues for Educational Opportunity and Minority Engineer; on food for E, the Environment Magazine, Adirondack Life, Northern Express, Valley News, Home Cooking and Los Angeles Jewish Journal; on health topics for Vibrant Life and American Health and Fitness, and on food for E The Environmental Magazine and Home Cooking. Yvona lives, writes, and cooks in beautiful northern New York State. She is currently working on poetry, children's picture books, a chapter book, a young adult historical novel, and other cookbooks.