I write stories for kids and adults
who want magic and mystery in their world.
How to pronounce my name: Silvia (SIL vee uh) Acevedo (ah seh VEH tho)
Want to know a bit about me? Here’s a short bio:
Silvia Acevedo
Silvia Acevedo writes stories for kids and adults who want magic and mystery in their world.
She whipped up monster hijinks in MAIL-ORDER MONSTERS: CRASH COURSE, conjured a Wisconsin ghost in the spooky anthology THE HAUNTED STATES OF AMERICA, and barely escaped the gods’ wrath in her award-winning mythological GOD AWFUL series.
Silvia worked in New York publishing at Scholastic, literary agency Writers House, and the nonprofit Inkluded, which champions diversity in publishing. She simultaneously led the Wisconsin chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and served on the board of the Wisconsin Writers Association. Before that, Silvia was a reporter and anchor for newspapers, radio, and TV, where she covered everything from presidential politics to state fair food-on-a-stick.
Find her at SilviaAcevedo.com.
And here’s a longer bio:
Silvia Acevedo and her two brothers were the first generation of her family born in the continental United States, specifically, in the great state of Wisconsin and, even more specifically, in Milwaukee, the city of festivals (or the beer capital of the world, or, if you prefer, “a great place by a great lake”). She spent a lot of her childhood exploring the area’s beauty, learning about its many ethnicities, and reading in the library. South Milwaukee (Go Rockets!) had an especially large Polish community and a not-so-large Puerto Rican one, which made her a rarity in their suburban schools.
Silvia took college prep classes at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and graduated high school with honors. She continued her education at the University of Wisconsin – Madison (Go Badgers!), where she triple-majored in Journalism, Spanish, and Latin American/Iberian Studies. During her college years, Silvia reported for The Badger Herald college newspaper, The Milwaukee Sentinel metro newspaper, WORT-FM radio, and WKOW-TV, where she was honored with an Associated Press Award for her part in a documentary about migrant workers. Again Silvia graduated with honors, made the Dean’s List, and received the College of Letters and Science’s highest honor, the Dean’s Achievement Award for the Area of Humanities.
She then began a fruitful, 25-plus-year career in journalism, writing and presenting news for TV, radio, newspapers, the web, and magazines.
Silvia reported traffic for WISN-TV in Milwaukee, reported from and managed the Southern Bureau for KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs, and reported and anchored at KTBC-TV in Austin, where she also offered news of Latino interest in her segment titled Neighborhood News. In Austin, she garnered another Associated Press Award, this time for Best Series for an in-depth look comparing Austin’s skyrocketing growth to that of Las Vegas’s.
Silvia’s trip back home brought her to Wisconsin’s flagship station, WTMJ-TV, where her reporting earned her the Milwaukee Press Club’s “Wisconsin Excellence in Journalism” Award for Best Live Reporting. She also provided news commentary at TODAY’S TMJ4, “the biggest stick in the state,” and even guest hosted their daily talk show, The Morning Blend. Take a look at some of her TV work here.
Silvia freelanced at various news publications and was happy to have circled back to UW-Milwaukee as a contributor to their Research and Alumni magazines.
Silvia feels her decades of reporting provided her a wealth of insight into human nature. She had the opportunity to talk with some of the nation’s most influential newsmakers, highly regarded experts, talented creators, dedicated athletes, passionate personalities, and fascinated observers.
Feeling a growing desire to write fiction, Silvia began jotting down story ideas and interesting lines until she’d completed several manuscripts. She then fully allowed fiction – especially mythology – back into her life. The result was her debut novel, GOD AWFUL LOSER, featuring Cupid, the Roman God of Love, in a comedic adventure for teens and adults. Silvia got to visit some of the book’s key scenes at Paris’s Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe and Italy’s Roman Colosseum; she has yet to visit Death Valley, the site of another crucial scene.
The book’s sequel, GOD AWFUL THIEF, continues Cupid’s misadventures. Silvia’s hoping The Fates are kind and send her to the places of which she’s written, this time Sicily’s Venus Tower and the Sydney Opera House.
The third and final book of the GOD AWFUL trilogy, GOD AWFUL REBEL, incorporates scenes from Moscow’s onion-domed St. Basil’s Cathedral and the Mayan Tikal Temple in Guatemala. Silvia is thrilled that GOD AWFUL REBEL won the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’s coveted Spark Award, a high recognition within the children’s book industry.
Silvia’s been a member of SCBWI since 2007 and served as Wisconsin’s (and the organization’s) first Indie/Self-publishing coordinator. She was then honored to lead Wisconsin as Regional Advisor for three years.
Silvia was on the Board of Directors for the Wisconsin Writers Association and is a member of the Council for Wisconsin Writers and the Wisconsin State Reading Association.
Thanks to all her years in news, Silvia enjoys fiddling around with video cameras. She’s videographer for the award-winning Fantasy Art Workshop Video Series and Jeff Miracola’s YouTube channel, which features more than 125 videos, tallying 2.25 million views. Her husband is an accomplished fantasy illustrator and children’s book artist. Together they founded Fantasy Art Workshop and its annual Illustration Intensive, a week-long workshop for aspiring and professional illustrators. Their joint efforts have them traveling to many countries for their work. They hope to travel more.
Silvia launched her New York publishing career interning at the famed literary agency Writers House, where she focused on agenting and editorial. She moved on to Inkluded, a nonprofit championing diversity in publishing. Then she picked up and moved to the east coast to work in Manhattan at Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books. Good forces eventually pulled her back to Wisconsin, but Silvia continues to love Manhattan and all of New York City.
Silvia conjured up a ghost, figuratively speaking, for the spooky anthology THE HAUNTED STATES OF AMERICA, published by Godwin Books/MacMillan. She is proud to represent Wisconsin in this diverse, only slightly chilly collection which Kirkus Reviews calls, “An entertaining, fright-filled geographical tour.” Spookiness is apparently Silvia’s jam because a different spine-tingling short story won Honorable Mention in the Wisconsin Writers Association’s annual Jade Ring contest.
But it’s her latest title that has Silvia over the moon with excitement. She is thrilled to finally have a book out in the world that she worked on a looong time: the magical middle grade fantasy MAIL-ORDER MONSTERS: CRASH COURSE. This monstrous tale got all kinds of glitter thrown its way, from fabulous trade reviews (a verdict of “GET IT!” from Kirkus and 5-stars from Readers’ Favorite) to an incredible release ranking, debuting as Amazon’s #1 bestseller for children’s robot science fiction! Whoo hooo!!!! Please click the link for the book above if you have a young person in your life who loves monster mayhem and riotous robots. 🙂
And the last bit about Silvia, she was a 13-time, age-group U.S. national speedskating champion who also coached, officiated on the ice, and served as competition public announcer. At the 2018 US Speedskating Olympic Trials, she called the play-by-play action and gave color commentary. She’s now retired from speedskating, but she and Jeff continue to run/bike/whatever to keep their hearts racing.
It may seem obvious by now, but Silvia truly loves meeting people from all walks of life, especially at her many talks at bookstores, writing conferences, and schools. To see if she’s available for your next event, go to her Speaking page.
