Patricia June AustinAfter 16 years as an elementary school teacher, Patricia Austin earned a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of New Orleans, where she went on to serve as a faculty member for 26 years. In 2022, Austin was awarded the ight Up for Literacy Humanities Award by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Austin, who has said one of her all-time favorite activities is reading to children, served as curator of UNO's Children's and Young Adult Library for two decades and mentored countless student library volunteers and librarians in training. She has authored more than 40 articles in educational journals, hundreds of book reviews, Tales From a Teaching Life: Vignettes in Verse and an award-winning picture book, The Cat Who Loved Mozart. Over the course of her more than 40-year career as an educator, Austin helped develop the literacy teaching skills of thousands of Louisiana educators. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. Read More Read Less