About Toni

Toni De Palma's first Y.A. novel, Under the Banyan Tree was selected as a New Voice's Pick by the Association of Booksellers for Children. She is also the author of two other Y.A. novels, The Devil's Triangle and The Devil's Temptation, and two middle grade novels, Jeremy Owl and Miracle Meggie.

 

Toni holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College, is a NJ Arts Council Grant recipient and has participated in the NJ Women's Playwright Program. In addition to novel and plays, Toni is also a screenwriter. In 2019, she wrote, directed, and produced the short film, Marty's Calling, which was selected for the Chelsea, Garden State, and Ischia Film Festivals. 

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Toni was born in Brooklyn, New York, but moved to New Jersey when she was eleven. As a teenager, she divided her summers between the Jersey Shore and Ischia, the Italian island in the Bay of Naples, where her family is from, and where her father grew up.

 

Butterfly Summer, Toni's first novel for adults, is set in Ischia and based loosely on the summer Toni spent in Ischia when she was eighteen-years-old.