Maria Kostaki is a native of Moscow, Russia, but has spent most of her adult life on a plane from Athens, Greece to New York City and back. She holds a master’s in journalism from New York University, where she was a recipient of a grant from the Knight Foundation.
She has worked as an editor and staff writer, her fiction has appeared in Flashquake and Mediterranean Poetry, and her debut novel “Pieces” was published in 2015, winning a silver medal at the Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY) in April of 2017.
“When Clouds Embrace,” her first children’s book, will be released on May 2, 2017, all the proceeds of which will be donated to unaccompanied refugee minors from war-torn Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.
But most importantly, she’s the mother of a four-year-old boy, who is afraid of thunder.