Olivia Lodise was born in 1995 in Atlanta, Georgia. She has two sisters, one older and one younger, who are very supportive of her writing. She is completely bilingual in French and English, and has studied Mandarin for over five years. She has also traveled extensively, from visiting family in France, to the Trans-Siberian Orient Express to practice her Mandarin. Although Olivia is very scientifically inclined and therefore interested in studying and creating artificial limbs, writing is one of her strongest passions. Some of her favorite novels include When the Wind Blows by James Patterson, Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce, and La nuit des temps by Rene Barjavel. Charles Baudelaire’s poetry has inspired her greatly as well. She prefers reading in French and writing in English, and hopes to appreciate doing both in Mandarin in the future as well.

Olivia attends Atlanta International School and is in the graduating high school class of 2013. In addition to writing, her interests include archery, hapkido, piano, clarinet, saxophone, robotics, and drawing. All of these activities, along with her family and friends, have inspired her writing.

Violet Path, Olivia’s first novel, started as a simple writing assignment for English class in seventh grade, but it did not end there. For class, she had written the first chapter to study narration and the second to practice description and character development. However, the story continued, and she wrote every night. Originally, she wrote Violet Path by hand in four journals, as she believes that writing by hand allows her to connect with what is being written. She loves the feeling of ink and graphite on the tips of her fingers, the eraser shavings caught in the journal bindings, the smell of the fresh paper, the pressing of what is penned, and getting her hands dirty as she writes. For Olivia, writing is mapping out a world, laying it out in front of her, seeing every scene like a timeline, and tracing the characters’ lives. It is drawing out dreams. There are so many possible stories and infinite ways to share them, with shaping words only being one of many tools. She believes the translation from ideas to words to be empowering; only the combination of imagination and language is truly limitless.

Click here for a sneak peek into Violet Path.