Dawn Malone is the author of BINGO SUMMER, a coming-of-age novel following 13-year-old Summer Haas who scratches the lottery ticket that her mother tucks into her birthday card, and wins $10 million dollars. When the single-parent family flees town and the relentless media attention brought on by their windfall, Summer struggles to fit into her new surroundings.

A former newspaper reporter, Dawn has written on a wide range of subjects, from a creole cooking school in New Orleans to award-winning irises in a Wisconsin greenhouse. Writing those articles and working other odd jobs over the years - cake assembly line worker, yogurt seller, substitute teacher − helped her develop the quirky characters that populate her stories. Her work has appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal, the Chicken Soup for the Soul Think Positive for Kids edition, Highlights for Children, and many other magazines and newspapers. When she's not writing, Dawn loves hiking when someone else carries her backpack. She lives in central Illinois with her husband, three kids, and one crazy dog.