SATA

PERSONAL

Surname pronounced “ox-ee-AY”; born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; father a pastor; married; wife’s name Mary; children: Penelope.

Trinity Western University, B.A., 2003; Carnegie Mellon University, M.F.A. (dramatic writing), 2005.

ADDRESS

• Home - Pittsburgh, PA.
• Agent - Regal Hoffmann & Associates, 242 W. 38th St., Fl. 2, New York, NY 10018; info@rhaliterary.com.

CAREER

Screenwriter, novelist, and educator. Has taught at Chatham University, Pittsburgh, PA.

Reading, drawing, board games.

Two-time recipient, Schubert fellowship in dramatic writing; Family Friendly Programming Forum Screenwriting fellowship, for The Windsor Family Curse; Gush grant and Bronze Remi Award, WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, both for Ten-Speed; Sloan Foundation grant, for The Turk; New Voices selection, American Bookseller’s Association, 2011, and Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy shortlist, both for Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes; TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Notable Children’s Books designation, American Library Association, all 2015, all for The Night Gardener; Governor General’s Literary Award, Charlotte Huck Award, National Council of Teachers of English, and Sydney Taylor Award, Association of Jewish Libraries, all 2018, all for Sweep.

WRITINGS

• MIDDLE-GRADE NOVELS
• The Night Gardener, Amulet Books (New York, NY), 2014
• The Burning Tide (“Spirit Animals: Fall of the Beasts” series), Scholastic (New York, NY), 2016
• Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster, Amulet Books (New York, NY), 2018
• "THE VANISHED KINGDOM" MIDDLE-GRADE FANTASY SERIES
• (Self-illustrated) Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, Amulet Books (New York, NY), 2011
• (Self-illustrated) Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard (sequel to Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes ), Amulet Books (New York, NY), 2016
• The War of the Maps, Amulet Books (New York, NY), 2025
• “FABLED STABLES” CHAPTER-BOOK SERIES
• Willa the Wisp, illustrated by Olga Demidova, Amulet Books (New York, NY), 2020
• Trouble with Tattle-Tales, illustrated by Olga Demidova, Amulet Books (New York, NY), 2021
• Belly of the Beast, illustrated by Olga Demidova, Amulet Books (New York, NY), 2022

Author of screenplays, including The Windsor Family Curse, Ten-Speed, Mi Familia, The Big Surprise, Dining Alone?, and From the Darkness.

The Night Gardener was adapted for audiobook, read by Beverley A. Crick, Recorded Books, 2015.

SIDELIGHTS

Jonathan Auxier established a reputation as a playwright before producing his first book for children, the self-illustrated middle-grade novel Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes. Together with its sequel, Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard, this saga follows the exploits of a blind thief who attempts to dethrone a tyrannical ruler. Auxier received a TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award, as well as a Monica Hughes Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy, for his Victorian-themed ghost story The Night Gardener, and he expanded his audience to include chapter-book fans in his whimsical “Fabled Stables” stories.

As Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes opens, the titular hero, a foundling, is spotted floating in a basket by a group of sailors. Blinded by a raven, Peter endures a miserable existence while growing up on the streets, and he eventually falls in with Mr. Seamus, a cruel beggar-monger. Under Seamus’s tutelage, Peter becomes an expert burglar and pickpocket, and one day he pilfers a box containing three pairs of magical eyes. After placing the pair of golden eyes into his empty sockets, the lad is transported to a mysterious island where he meets Professor Cake and learns that he is destined to complete a perilous mission. Accompanied by Sir Tode, a cursed knight, Peter journeys to a vanished kingdom to free a group of enslaved children.

A critic in Publishers Weekly offered praise for Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, describing Auxier’s story as “inventive, unpredictable, and like its hero—nimble.” Its “quirky nature, distinctive plot, and fresh themes will draw young readers in and spark their imaginations,” predicted Cori Dusmann in Quill & Quire, while Chris Laurie wrote in the Canadian Review of Materials that Auxier “makes extensive use of wordplay; puns, double meanings and imaginative prose … to delightful effect.” The author “has a juggler’s dexterity with prose that makes this fantastical tale quicken the senses,” concluded a critic in appraising Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes for Kirkus Reviews.

In Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard, Auxier presents “a thought-provoking look at classic literary tropes, including their fanciful, sometimes darker, nature and themes,” noted Shelle Rosenfeld in her appraisal for Booklist. Here readers meet Sophie, a twelve-year-old book mender who decides to fight the efforts of Inquisitor Prigg, a draconian official intent on ridding the town of Bustleburgh of nonsense by burning every storybook in it. Enlisted by Peter and Sir Tode to repair the Book of Who, Sophie learns that this magical volume is one of four books that, together, hold the key to saving the world. Together, the three now team up to locate the remaining volumes. “Auxier balances delectable language, invigorating nonsense, and wisdom with aplomb,” noted a writer in appraising Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard for Kirkus Reviews. Caitlin Augusta recommended the same work in School Library Journal, writing that the author “clearly views books as the elixir of life, and this conviction oozes out of the text.”

Set in the mid-nineteenth century, The Night Gardener follows parentless Irish teenager Molly and her hobbled younger brother Kip as they find work at a dilapidated manor house located in rural England. After arriving at the Windsor estate, they notice an ugly and enormous tree that appears to suffocate the house, perhaps draining energy from its gloomy and tortured inhabitants. More frightening still is the malevolent nocturnal visitor who tends to the estate’s wish-granting tree, which is watered with sweat gathered from the brows of the nightmare-plagued Windsors. In The Night Gardener, “Auxier achieves an ideal mix of adventure and horror,” stated Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books critic April Spisak. Critiquing the same work in Horn Book, Jonathan Hunt asserted that the author “delivers the goods with his precise descriptions of the gothic setting and teasing hints of mystery and suspense.”

In Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster readers meet Nan Sparrow, an orphaned eleven-year-old who takes a job with Wilkie Crudd, an evil chimney sweep. Toiling every day, Nan faces numerous dangers, some while cleaning chimneys and others while traversing the streets of London. Although her strong will and quick wit usually save her, one day she becomes caught in a chimney fire and fears that her life is about to end. Falling unconscious, Nan eventually wakes up to find herself in an old, abandoned attic. Nearby she sees a mysterious creature, a golem from Jewish mythology. Named Charlie, the golem is created of soot and ash. Hiding from Crudd, girl and monster remain in the attic and quickly become fast friends. As childlike Charlie grows stronger, Nan also gains strength, and by allowing love into her life she soon gathers a family of fellow misfits.

In an interview for Publishers Weekly, Auxier told Shannon Maughan that the idea for Sweep originated with his wife, who has a doctorate in Victorian children’s literature. She recommended that he read The Water-Babies, a children’s book by English writer Charles Kingsley that focuses on the Victorian world of chimney sweeps. “Pretty much the second I started reading … the character of Nan Sparrow emerged, fully formed,” he explained.

“Nan’s fiery personality will attract readers like moths,” wrote Julia Smith in appraising Sweep for Booklist, who added that “Auxier’s unusual blend of mythology and history will keep them transfixed.” A Kirkus Reviews critic noted of the novel that it is “as heartbreaking as bleak midwinter—and as hopeful as early spring,” and a Publishers Weekly critic dubbed it “dazzling, warmhearted.”

Illustrated by Olga Demidova, Willa the Wisp also includes lovable monsters among its cast of characters. The first installment in the “Fabled Stables” chapter-book series, the story takes readers to a remote and hidden island where Professor Cake provides a refuge for fantastical creatures in need of rescue. These creatures reside in the island’s magical stable, cared for by a boy named Auggie. One day, with a bang, the stable makes room for another magical resident: a shapeshifting creature called a wisp. Auggie is thrilled, although this new resident quickly reveals its talent for finding trouble. When hunters arrive on the island, the ephemeral wisp is threatened, and the drama plays out in Demidova’s color-filled art. Reviewing Willa the Wisp in Kirkus Reviews, a contributor praised this “whimsical fantasy” for featuring “the right amount of speed and cleverness” for budding chapter-book fans. Also recommending Auxier’s story, Booklist reviewer Smith predicted that its “gleeful and imaginative writing will charm.”

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After almost a decade away, Auxier returned to the world of Hazelport, Peter, and Sophie. The War of the Maps, the final book in the “Vanished Kingdom” trilogy, sees Peter and Sophie on opposing sides of a long-running war, a conflict apparently between the forces of reason and the forces of magic. In the midst of that, wonders are disappearing, and only a strange group called the League of Maps appears to have any answers. Auxier explores not just the world he has created but the political and psychological questions his story raises.

Writing in Horn Book, Deirdre F. Baker praised the series ender, writing that “Auxier closes his story in a move both unexpected and time-honored.” Baker especially enjoyed  how the book is “chock-a-block with characters and places old and new.” Kristina Roderick, in Booklist, wrote that the book should attract both fans of the series and new readers with its “memorable ensemble cast” and themes such as colonization and “what it means to be a leader.” A writer in Kirkus Reviews agreed, describing the book as an “action-packed end to a wonder-filled trilogy.” They called the book “ambitious” and “ripe with all the action, adventure, intensity, and wordplay of the first two stories.”

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BIOCRIT

PERIODICALS

• Booklist, June 1, 2014, Debbie Carton, review of The Night Gardener, p. 95; March 15, 2016, Shelle Rosenfeld, review of Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard, p. 63; August 1, 2018, Julia Smith, review of Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster, p. 91; August 1, 2020, Julia Smith, review of Willa the Wisp, p. 73; March, 2025, Kristina Roderick, review of The War of the Maps, p. 106.

• BookPage, October, 2018, Norah Piehl, review of Sweep, p. 30.

• Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, May, 2014, review of The Night Gardener, p. 441; April, 2016, April Spisak, review of Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard, p. 402.

• Canadian Review of Materials, December 16, 2011, Chris Laurie, review of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes.

• Horn Book, May-June, 2014, Jonathan Hunt, review of The Night Gardener, p. 79; July-August, 2025, Deirdre F. Baker, review of The War of the Maps, pp. 90+.

• Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2011, review of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes; March 1, 2014, review of The Night Gardener; February 1, 2016, review of Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard; August 1, 2018, review of Sweep; August 1, 2020, review of Willa the Wisp; March 1, 2025, review of The War of the Maps.

• National Post, July 4, 2014, Philip Marchand, review of The Night Gardener.

• Publishers Weekly, July 4, 2011, review of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, p. 65; July 9, 2018, review of Sweep, p. 93.

• Quill & Quire, July, 2011, Corie Dusmann, review of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes.

• Resource Links, October, 2014, Myra Junyk, review of The Night Gardener, p. 23.

• School Library Journal, October, 2011, Caitlin Augusta, review of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, p. 130; April, 2016, Caitlin Augusta, review of Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard, p. 145.

• Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 2014, Diane Colson, review of The Night Gardener, p. 76.

ONLINE

• Canadian Broadcasting Company website, https://cbc.ca/books/ (March 31, 2017), “Why Middle-Grade Writer Jonathan Auxier Is Terrible at Answering E-mails.”

• Jonathan Auxier website, https://www.thescop.com (November 7, 2025).

• Publishers Weekly, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (September 25, 2018), Shannon Maughan, “Q & A with Jonathan Auxier.”

• Wired, http://www.wired.com/ (October 12, 2011), Jonathan H. Liu, author interview.*