Lee Wardlaw is the author of several children's books

Children's literature

Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

, such as 101 Ways to Bug Your Teacher

101 Ways to Bug Your Teacher

101 Ways to Bug Your Teacher is a 2004 children's book by Lee Wardlaw. It is the sequel to 101 Ways To Bug Your Parents. The book focuses on Stephen Wyatt, a middle school inventor who must overcome his inventor's block that developed when his parents reveal they are planning to have him skip...

, 101 Ways to Bug Your Parents, and See You In September.

Early life

Lee was born in Salina

Salina, Kansas

Salina is a city in and the county seat of Saline County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 47,707. Located in one of the world's largest wheat-producing areas, Salina is a regional trade center for north-central Kansas...

, Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

 on November 20, 1955. Raised in Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara, California

Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, she attended Coldsprings Elementary school, Santa Barbara High School

Santa Barbara High School

Santa Barbara High School, "Home of the Dons," is situated on a beautiful campus in, Santa Barbara, California and is part of the Santa Barbara School Districts. One of the oldest high schools in California, it was established in 1875, and moved to its current site in 1924...

, and Santa Barbara Junior High School. During that period of time, her parents had a divorce and her house was burned down by a firestorm

Firestorm

A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires, forest fires, and wildfires...

. She then graduated from California Polytechnic State University

California Polytechnic State University

California Polytechnic State University, or Cal Poly, is a public university located in San Luis Obispo, California, United States. The university is one of two polytechnic campuses in the 23-member California State University system....

 with honors and a Bachelor's degree in Education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

. After graduation, she started her teaching career as an Elementary teacher for five years. She then decided to become an author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

because

"I'm a storyteller. For years, people have joked that if you ask my dad what
time it is, he'll tell you how to build a watch. I have to embellish! I have to tell you all the who's and what's and how's and why's. And I have to do it with arm gestures and silly voices and weird faces. I also became a writer because I love to read. The elementary school I went to didn't have a library.
So, in second grade, after I finished reading all the books we had at home, and all the books at school in my teacher's classroom, I was so desperate to read something else, that I wrote my own book. I had so much fun writing that first book, that I kept on writing after that."

She started writing when she was seven and tried to get her first book published at nineteen but was rejected multiple times until she was thirty.