About Jolene

Here's my official biography:

Jolene Gutiérrez grew up on a farm in northeastern Colorado, surrounded by animals, plants, and history. She is an award-winning teacher librarian and has been working with neurodivergent learners at Denver Academy since 1995. She’s a wife of 25+ years and mama to two young adults, three dogs, two cats, and an ever-rotating variety of other rescue animals. Jolene is an active member of SCBWI, part of the KidLitCollective and Picture Book Gold. Jolene is represented by agent Kaitlyn Sanchez of Bradford Literary. She’s a contributor to If I Could Choose a Best Day: Poems of Possibility (Candlewick, 2025) and the author of Unbreakable: A Japanese American Family in an American Incarceration Camp (Abrams Childrens 2025, co-authored with Minoru Tonai), Mamiachi and Me (Abrams/Appleseed, 2024, co-authored with her son Dakota), The Ofrenda That We Built (Chronicle, 2024, co-authored with her daughter Shaian), Too Much! An Overwhelming Day (Abrams/Appleseed, 2023), the Stars of Latin Pop series (Rourke, 2021), Bionic Beasts: Saving Animal Lives with Artificial Flippers, Legs, and Beaks (Lerner, 2020), and Mac and Cheese and the Personal Space Invader (Clear Fork/Spork 2020). Find her online at www.jolenegutierrez.com or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram @writerjolene.

And here's another biography that gives you a little more information about me in first person. ;)

Age 4 with my favorite book and rock.

I was born in Sterling, Colorado in 1974. I grew up on a farm in northeastern Colorado and have many fond memories of farm life, including riding horses and collecting rocks. I also have many nasty memories of farm life, including falling in a puddle of pig poop while wearing white pants and eating Rocky Mountain Oysters before I learned that they aren't really oysters.

Growing up on a farm with no other kids my age within walking distance, I grew to love reading and writing. I've been writing since I was 5 or so, and my second-grade teacher helped me publish my first book.


I've been a school librarian since 1995 and I love helping students find their perfect book. After I had my own kids, though, for a little while I was so busy being a mom that I forgot some of the other things that nurture my soul. When a brilliant woman I knew, Rae, lost her fight with breast cancer, I realized that I needed to stop waiting for my dreams to come true and take steps to make them come true. So I started writing again.

I dream that the books I write will become someone's perfect book. I can't imagine anything more magical than that! One of my other dreams is to change the world, one reader at a time. I have lots of dreams. None of them include Rocky Mountain Oysters. :)