Janeen grew up in Florida, a place she loves and hates in equal measure, and now lives in London with her partner and three chaotic, incredible children. She’s half-Pakistani, half-New-Yorker, a lapsed lawyer, teacher, Muslim and Catholic. She’s passionate about creating characters that are many things at once – because she knows she’s not alone in being a tangled mass of identities, always changing. She won the 2023 Guppy Open Submission Competition, and her debut novel, Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Younger Readers.

A story encouraging kindness, curiosity and respect for other cultures’ – EmpathyLab

Janeen grew up in Florida, a place she loves and hates in equal measure, and now lives in London with her partner and three chaotic, incredible children. She’s half-Pakistani, half-New-Yorker, a lapsed lawyer, teacher, Muslim and Catholic. She’s passionate about creating characters that are many things at once – because she knows she’s not alone in being a tangled mass of identities, always changing. She won the 2023 Guppy Open Submission Competition, and her debut novel, Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Younger Readers.

A story encouraging kindness, curiosity and respect for other cultures’ – EmpathyLab

Janeen grew up in Florida, a place she loves and hates in equal measure, and now lives in London with her partner and three chaotic, incredible children. She’s half-Pakistani, half-New-Yorker, a lapsed lawyer, teacher, Muslim and Catholic. She’s passionate about creating characters that are many things at once – because she knows she’s not alone in being a tangled mass of identities, always changing. She won the 2023 Guppy Open Submission Competition, and her debut novel, Evie and Maryam’s Family Tree won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Younger Readers.

A story encouraging kindness, curiosity and respect for other cultures’ – EmpathyLab