| Genre: | Young adult fiction, comics |
| Years Active: | 2013–present |
| Language: | English |
| Birth Place: | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Alma Mater: | University of California, San Diego Emerson College |
| Children: | 1 |
Maurene Goo is a Korean-American author of young adult fiction and comics. Her books have been translated into twelve languages[1] and two of her novels, I Believe in a Thing Called Love and Somewhere Only We Know, have been optioned to be made into feature films by Netflix.
Maurene Goo was born in Los Angeles[2] and raised in Glendale, California.[3] She went to school thinking she was going to become a journalist,[4] and she studied communication and English literature at UC San Diego.[5] She applied to grad schools for journalism, creative writng, and publishing, ending up getting accepted into all. She has a master's in publishing, writing, and literature from Emerson College. Prior to publishing her debut novel, Since You Asked, she worked in publishing and design.[6]
In 2012, she married illustrator Christopher Appelhans.[7] Their son was born in 2020.[8]
Goo published her first young adult novel, Since You Asked, in 2013 with Scholastic. Her sophomore novel, I Believe in A Thing Called Love, was released in 2017, followed by The Way You Make Me Feel (2018), and Somewhere Only We Know (2019). In 2021, Goo completed a five-issue run for Marvel Comics, writing Korean-American superhero Silk, illustrated by Canadian comic book artist Takeshi Miyazawa who has previously illustrated other comics set in the Spider-Verse.[9] [10] She has published essays and short stories in various anthologies, as well.
Her newest young adult novel, Throwback, about a Korean American gen Z teen getting stuck in the 90s, wasbe published by Zando on April 11, 2023.[11]
Her work has been critically acclaimed and award-winning, receiving multiple starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and Booklist, been placed on many school, library, and state reading lists and has appeared on several "Best Book" lists, including NPR (2017, 2018), Cosmo (2019), The Boston Globe (2018), The New York Public Library (2017, 2018) and The Los Angeles Public Library (2013). She is the recipient of the California Library Association's John and Patricia Beatty Award and a finalist for the California Book Award.