Ratha Tep

Ratha Tep was born in Cambodia and grew up in New York City, where her childhood consisted of, among other things, walking her rabbit on a leash on the concrete sidewalks, and weekly visits to the Children’s Reading Room at the Donnell Library. She went on to get degrees in English and in Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and has also taken writing workshops and classes at Brown University and the New School.

She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, where she has written feature stories on Virginia Woolf’s Cornwall and Truman Capote’s Mediterranean, and has reported from Paris, Milan, London, Zurich and Basel. She is now looking to create new worlds of her own, in which animal characters navigate their foibles and frailties with humor and spirit.

Ratha is happily settled in a 180-year-old house in Dublin filled with books and creaky floorboards. She loves, in no particular order, Sunday roasts with her family, curling up to read with her girls in the evening (and morning), and weeping willow trees. ​​She recently started Max’s Boat, a picture book recommendation site where writers and illustrators share their favorite picks.

Her first picture book is about a wombat named Wally, who was the World’s Greatest Piano-Playing Wombat, until he realized he wasn’t.