about
E.J. Schwartz is an award-winning author who loves rock climbing, the Montessori method of education, and a24 films. In high school, she was a competitive gymnast and on an all-star cheer team that was top ten in the world. Now that she no longer flips on a daily basis, she writes a lot about people who do.
After graduating from Susquehanna University with a B.A. in Creative Writing and a minor in Publishing, E.J. went on to get her MFA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. There, she spent her time teaching, volunteering, roller skating, and learning how to grow plants. Her published work can be found in The New York Times, Pithead Chapel, Barrelhouse, and Best Microfiction, among others.
E.J. is the author of Before We Were Blue, a YA novel pitched as Netflix’s CHEER meets Girl, Interrupted, which won this year’s gold IPPY award and is a 2021 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist! Kirkus called the novel, “a gut-wrenching and cathartic page-turner about identity, desire, and the strength it takes to heal.” E.J. is represented by Kaitlyn Johnson at Belcastro Agency.
“Before We Were Blue is brilliantly stacked with everything a reader could want; it’s dark, tense, honest, and thrilling. And romantic in its insistence that even over the rockiest terrain, where girls go, friendships follow. An addictive and transcendent debut.”
—Nina de Gramont, author of Gossip of the Starlings and The Christie Affair
E.J. Schwartz 