About Erica

Erica Lyons is a Hong Kong-based children's book author focusing on picture books and middle grade novels with a preference for historical fiction. Her debut picture book, Alone Together on Dan Street, was a National Jewish Book Awards Finalist. Her second book, Zhen Yu and the Snake, was a Sydney Taylor Prize Notable. She is an active member of Hong Kong's Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

She also freelances for a number of international publications, often focusing on Judaism and Asia — most recently Paper Brigade Daily (Jewish Book Council) and the Jewish Literary Journal. She has also contributed to a number of books, including, most recently, Growing Up Jewish in India: Synagogues, Customs, and Communities from the Bene Israel to the Art of Siona Benjamin.

She is deeply committed to local and global Jewish causes. She is the chair of the Hong Kong Jewish Historical Society, the Hong Kong Delegate to the World Jewish Congress, and the founder and director of PJ Library Hong Kong. Erica founded Asian Jewish Life – a journal of spirit, society and culture, celebrating the diversity of the Jewish experience in Asia, in 2009.

Erica was a scholar with Genesis Philanthropy's Our Common Destiny forum. She is a member of the Executive Committee of Global Jewry and sits on several other philanthropic boards. Most recently, she became a member of President Herzog's Voice of the People initiative, where her working group is focused on Global Jewry.

She has been a speaker at a number of forums, including TEDx Victoria Harbour (Hong Kong), the SEFER International Conference for Judaic Studies (Moscow), Limmud China (Shanghai), and the 16th World Jewish Congress Plenary.

She is the mother of five children.