Ona Gritz writes memoir, essays, and poetry for adults, verse novels for teens, and fiction for children.

Her new memoir, Everywhere I Look, won the Readers’ Choice Gold Award for Best Adult Book, the Independent Author Award in New Nonfiction, the Independent Author Award in True Crime, and is an Independent Book Review 2024 Must-Read.

Ona’s nonfiction has appeared widely, including in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Utne Reader, Brevity, Parents, The Rumpus, and River Teeth. Among her recent honors are two Notable mentions in The Best American Essays and A Best Life Story in Salon.

Ona’s poetry collection Geode was a finalist for the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. Her poems can be found in Ploughshares, The Bellevue Literary Review, One Art, Catamaran Literary Reader, Stone Gathering, SWWIM, Literary Mama, and elsewhere. In 2020, she won The Poetry Archive Now: Wordview 2020 Project.

Ona’s 2023 novel for children, August Or Forever, was a Reader’s Choice and Wishing Shelf finalist in middle grade fiction. Her picture book, Tangerines and Tea, My Grandparents and Me, was named Best Alphabet Book of 2005 by Nick Jr. Family Magazine, and a Best Book of the Year by Scholastic Parent & Child Magazine. She’s the author of two 2024 YA verse novels, The Space You Left Behind, featured in The Children's Book Council’s Hot Off the Press roundup of anticipated best sellers, and Take a Sad Song, forthcoming in October from West 44 Books.

A columnist for Literary Mama for many years, Ona is currently the blog editor for Wordgathering. She lives with her husband, writer Daniel Simpson, near Philadelphia.