About Elizabeth
Name: Elizabeth Anne Fama, named for my grandmother, Antonietta Elisabetta.
Heritage: Italian, on both my mother's side and my father's side (my dad is Sicilian, and I actually do have an uncle Vinny).
Birthdate: March 30th.
Year: Let's say I was alive when the Beatles broke up, but too young to realize it.
Childhood family: my parents, two brothers, a sister, and a couple of Airedales. I was the youngest in the Fama family. Here we all are in Grammy's house:
My mom gave me the Frankenstein Monster bangs, and shaved my brothers' heads. Somehow my sister was spared. She also got to have soda with dinner instead of milk.
Adult Family: my husband, John, and our four children (two boys and two girls). We have a Portuguese Water Dog who looks just like me -- that is, curly black hair, short, always smiling. Here she is:
I don't sleep between the sink and the tub like this, though.
Favorite Animal: hippopotamus. I'm
especially fond of one in particular. She's featured prominently in the rest of this
web site.
Favorite Album: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Rolling Stone Magazine agrees with me.
Favorite Movie: how about three? 1) It's a Wonderful Life, 2) Jesus
Christ, Superstar and 3) the 1996 A&E version of Pride and Prejudice.
Home: affectionately known as The Fairy Castle. Judge for yourself:
Hobbies: jogging, tennis, swimming, reading. I also love to cook and I cook every day, but sometimes that feels more like a chore than a hobby.
Languages I speak: French, sort of fluently. I'm learning Italian. And of course I speak English, but my kids say it's a mommy dialect that doesn't use nouns. Here's a typical conversation:
Child: (who can't keep track of his own nose) "Mom, have you seen my calculator?"
Me: (who is simultaneously stirring tomato sauce, paying bills, and thinking about my latest manuscript) "Yeah. Um -- it's in the...(pause)...it's on top of the...(pause)."
Child: "On top of the what? Noun, woman!"
Something I do every day because I have to: laundry. Loads and loads of it.
Something I enjoy: big Sunday Dinners with my extended family. There are political conversations, hemorrhoid jokes, and arguments over who gets the last meatball -- the perfect mix.
Things I remember from my childhood: playing Cops and Robbers with bands of neighborhood children, hopping on a wooden pogo stick for hours at a time, dueling for the title of Stoop Ball King with my best friend on the block, drawing on recycled paper (the back side of my dad's research articles), and being abandoned on the way to school by my brothers, who said I embarrassed them by tripping on the cracks. As a reader I was the kind of kid who either devoured a book in one sitting or didn't read a word for weeks.
My mom sewed these capes and my batgirl mask, which had pointy ears that you can't see well in this photo. My brother and I took crime-fighting seriously. That's our dog Cindy, totally unimpressed.
My home office: my favorite place in our house. I watch airplanes, birds, and clouds through the skylights. Sometimes I write books.
My husband's home office: we call this the "squirrely desk," because it's so small he has to type like a squirrel.
Keep in mind when comparing the two photos of our offices that John's job feeds us, clothes us, and houses us, whereas mine just provides interesting cocktail party conversations.
Elementary and high school: The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.
College: The University of Chicago. I was a biology major, and thought I might go to medical school. Then I found out you have to work overnight shifts before you can graduate. Now I'm an amateur doctor, instead.
Graduate School: The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. I have an MBA, and a PhD in Economics and Finance. As you can see, I'm highly qualified to write children's books.
