Tanya Konerman, Author

Tanya Konerman is a children’s author, writing fiction and nonfiction in both prose and verse for kids ages 0-12. Her debut picture book, Mud to the Rescue!, is a lyrical nonfiction look at the ingenious ways animals use mud to survive and thrive. It is forthcoming in the spring of 2025 from Web of Life Books.

Tanya’s ghost story for 9-12 year-olds, “Danger in the Dunes,” was chosen to represent Indiana in the anthology for middle graders, The Haunted States of America, to be published by Macmillan’s Laura Godwin Books in July of 2024.

Tanya is represented by Mona Kanin, Agent with Great Dog Literary.

Tanya is active in SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and was Indiana SCBWI’s 2020 Helen Frost Mentorship Selectee, chosen by multi award-winning children’s author and poet Helen Frost for this honor. She is also the Newsletter Editor for IN SCBWI. In this role, she organizes, designs, writes (along with other contributors), edits, and publishes Indiana SCBWI’s quarterly newsletter. 

Before writing for children, Tanya was a freelance writer and editor. She has over twenty years of experience writing for magazines, newspapers, and websites, as well as a background in advertising and public relations. Tanya’s work has been published in At-Home Mother, Parents, Career Woman, and Employment News, as well as several technical magazines. She has written frequently for Bloomington, Indiana publications, including Bloomington Business Network and the Herald-Times. Her writing can also be found online at Livestrong, TheBump, e-How, and GlobalPost Parenting. Tanya has a dual BA in Journalism and Psychology, with a focus on childhood development, from Indiana University.

Besides volunteering with SCBWI, Tanya is active with the Friends of the Library (Monroe County), having served on the Marian Armstrong Exhibit Committee and helping to plan the recent nationally-curated six-week exhibit and related activities for Our Voice: Celebrating the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Awards.  Tanya is involved in AGPI (Association for Games & Puzzles International), Audubon, St. Vincent de Paul, Courage to Create, and the 12×12 Challenge. In addition, Tanya served previously as a Literary Arts representative on the Arts Alliance of Greater Bloomington’s Board of Directors.

Tanya lives in the beautiful woods of southern Indiana with her husband, daughters, senior Goldendoodle, and two cats who are lobbying hard to move indoors before their next birthday. She enjoys outdoor adventures in Indiana and the Southwest, including hiking, white water rafting, and birdwatching, as well as indoor time reading and puzzling.

Photos:

Tanya hiking at 10,000 feet elevation in southern Utah, along the Crystal Spring Trail in the Ashdown Gorge Wilderness on Cedar Break, fall 2019.

One of the Pileated Woodpeckers that visits Tanya’s backyard and lives in her nearby woods

The morning sun cresting the cliffs of Desolation-Gray Canyon in eastern Utah along the Green River, during an eight-day river-rafting adventure in May of 2022.

A hawk in flight over the Virgin River in St. George, Utah, November, 2022.