In 1968 Irene N. Watts came to Canada from Britain, where she had arrived thirty years earlier from Germany, via Kindertransport. She is a writer/playwright, theatre director, and educator. Her plays for young audiences have been widely produced. Awards include a Vancouver Theatre Alliance Jessie Richardson for Goodbye Marianne (Scirocco Drama and Anchorage Press, U.S.); the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People; the Isaac Frischwasser Memorial Award (Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards, 1999 and 2001); the Government of Alberta Achievement Award for Outstanding Service to Drama. Irene is a Lifetime Member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada. Recent publications include Tapestry of Hope: Holocaust Writing for Young People, compiled with Lillian Boraks-Nemetz (Tundra Books).