Photo: Leah Huebner
About Miriam
Miriam Chernick is an author of books for kids. She also loves animals!
Author Bio
Miriam Chernick is the author of The Zuzu Secret (2025), her debut novel for young readers. Previously she published A Kid’s Guide To Washington, D.C., Revised and Updated. She’s written articles for Highlights magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Disney Family. She has also reviewed children’s theater for DCTheatreScene.com. When she’s not writing, Miriam is a substitute teacher in her local public schools, a parent to three young adults, and a caregiver for her brother, who was born with Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare disease. As a child of Canadian diplomats, she lived in France, Canada, Venezuela, Israel, and Washington, D.C. Miriam holds an undergraduate degree in Japanese from Georgetown University and a master’s in Asian studies from Yale University, which led to marketing jobs at Fortune 100 companies in New York and Tokyo. More recently, she earned an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Miriam loves animals and plants, Wheel of Fortune and Wordle, speaking Spanish, drinking French, and eating Japanese. She lives in Maryland with her husband, two clever cats, and Zuki—a bearded dragon—who hangs out on her shoulder as she writes.
Press Kit - Images for Download
Author Headshot Miriam Chernick by Leah Huebner
Author Headshot Miriam Chernick by Leah Huebner
Black and white Author Headshot Miriam Chernick by Leah Huebner
Author Headshot Miriam Chernick by Leah Huebner
Cover of A Kid's Guide to Washington, DC by Miriam Chernick
THE ZUZU SECRET - Coming in May, 2025
More About Miriam
I was born in Paris! 🇫🇷 Sort of exciting, but I was young when my family left France, so I mostly enjoyed the city from my stroller. Still, that’s probably where my love of pigeons 🐦started. Since then, I’ve also learned to love baguettes 🥖 and Matisse’s work.
I met my now-husband on a subway platform in Tokyo on our way to dinner at an African food restaurant. I think the food was tasty, but I don’t really remember…💖
We lived in NYC for years until 9/11 when my family’s downtown apartment was damaged. After all our friends left the neighborhood, we traded in city life for the Maryland suburbs of D.C. 🦀
Homesick for New York, I wrote my first story—about a girl who finds an injured pigeon on a street in Brooklyn. Then I wrote a D.C. travel guide for kids. Researching the monuments 🏛️, museums and parks made me love D.C. too.
Miso and Boots, the feline family pets, 🐈🐈⬛, were rescued from a box by a dumpster. At first they had fleas, but now their fur is soft and silky. They tease stink bugs, knock over plants, and chase dots of light reflected off my watch. Joining them in the house is Zuki, a bearded dragon whose favorite food is dandelion flowers and who burrows under computer paper or watches squirrels out the window. When Cookie 🐶, a Pom-mix rescue, comes to visit she loves to taunt the other animals.
Not exactly a pet, but I also have compost worms 🐛 housed in a “Worm Pagoda.” They eat leftover veggie peel and eggshells, making rich soil (via their 💩) which gets dumped on my garden plants. My worms are the secret to my green thumb.
In addition to animals and plants, other loves of mine are reading books 📚 and magazines such as The Atlantic and The New Yorker (unfortunately, missing annotations by my mom), or working on easy puzzles (i.e., no more than 500 pieces!).
As a substitute teacher in Montgomery County, MD, my area of focus is ELL and Special Ed. Subbing is hard, but I love being with kids. I also tutor Japanese students in English. 🇯🇵
