Lutricia Lois Clifton was born in southeastern Oklahoma but moved frequently when growing up. She spent her developmental years in the Texas Panhandle, where she finished public school and junior college, then married and raised two sons in Colorado. She earned a B.A. and an M.A. in English from Colorado State University, with a Communications Development concentration. Following graduation, she worked in the high-tech industry for companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Hyundai. She finished this career as a director-level manager, and then settled in northern Illinois where she worked for a local newspaper and taught communications courses at a local university. She now focuses full time on her writing.

Lutricia’s early childhood experiences influence her young people’s books. She leans towards displaced children like Frankie Joe, the main character in her first book, FREAKY FAST FRANKY JOE, because she feels she can speak accurately for them. Following her parents’ divorce and later marriages, she had five stepbrothers and a stepsister. By the time she was in the third grade, Lutricia had lived in four states and gone to school in three, so she knows how it feels to move to an alien place and live with strangers. Through her writing, Lutricia hopes to convey this awareness and that, even though you don’t always get to choose the road you take, life where you end up can be good.

Lutricia Clifton now lives in northern Illinois, the setting of FREAKY FATS FRANKIE JOE. The book has been named to the child-voted state master lists for the Texas Bluebonnet Award, the South Carolina Children’s Book Award, and the Nebraska Children’s Choice Book Award, in addition to being named a Chicago Public Library Best of the Best 2013 Books for Great Kids.

Books by Lutricia Clifton

Seeking Cassandra

by Lutricia Clifton - Children's 9-12, Family Life, Friendship, Marriage, Mystery