About Lois
I have nightmares a lot. I had them as a kid too.
I am a life-long Mets fan, which is sometimes a painful thing to be.
My favorite young-adult novel is Robert Cormier’s I am the cheese, though it is very sad and dark.
My father-in-law was Alger Hiss, accused of being a Russian spy in the 1940s. Back then, his trial made front-page headlines for years and was called “the trial of the century.”
My son, Jacob, took up ballet when he was 10, and now dances with the Hudson Ballet Theater Dance Company. He works as a videographer, filming dance.
I was a Safety Officer when my son was in the Greenwich Village Little League.
I’m crazy about old movies—and by old, I mean OLD, from the 1930s and 1940s. My favorite is Preston Sturges’ romantic comedy The Lady Eve. I like it when comedy has some pain at its center, which is true of this film.
I showed up in a Roz Chast cartoon (“Bus of Fools”). Despite the title, I am honored.
I had the best summers at Camp Pine Grove sleepaway camp in New Jersey—where I met Dan Gutman, who grew up to become the bestselling author of My Weird School. Proud to say we are still friends.
For many years my mother was a Democratic District Leader in Queens and there is a small New York City park named for her in Forest Hills.
When I worked in the typing pool and as a slush-pile reader at The New Yorker Magazine, I met my husband, the awesome writer Tony Hiss.
Education: B.A. English, B.A. Psychology, University at Buffalo; M.A. The Writing Seminars, Johns Hopkins University
Member PEN and Science Fiction Writers of America
My brother, Steve, six years older, is a writer of terrific children’s books and graphic novels—check out his website. He holds a permit to a baseball diamond on Central Park’s Great Lawn and a bunch of us play softball there every summer.
My mother, uncle, and grandparents were born in Vienna and had to flee when Hitler came to power. At age 16 my mother was sent to Scotland on the Kindertransport, where she was adopted by a Scottish beekeeper. My uncle and grandparents couldn’t leave Vienna in time and had to run from Nazis for six years.
Because of my family history, the Austrian government made me an Austrian citizen.
One year I was a judge for the Young People’s Literature category for the National Book Awards.
I was supposed to take care of a tuxedo cat named Mischief for three months, but her owner never returned to pick her up. Mischief lived with me for almost 20 years. I miss her.
My middle name is Cynthia, so my initials are LCM, which in math stands for Least Common Multiple.
I only write books when an idea won’t leave me alone.
