Samantha Abeel

Samantha Abeel is an American author born in 1977 who was diagnosed with dyscalculia, a math learning disability, during her thirteenth winter in seventh grade, after excelling in language arts but struggling severely with numbers, time, and sequencing. She published her first book, Reach for the Moon, a collection of poetry and stories about her experiences, at age 15 in 1993, earning the Margot Marek Award, and later wrote the memoir My Thirteenth Winter: A Memoir, which won the 2005 Schneider Family Book Award in the teen category. Holding degrees from Mount Holyoke College and the University of Michigan, she became a speaker on learning disabilities.Goodreads author page, Prabook, Schneider Family Book Award - City Congregation essay