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 the Hong Kong’s Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

She also freelanced for a number of international publications often focusing on Judaism and Asia. Most recently to Paper Brigade Daily (Jewish Book Council) and the Jewish Literary Journal. She has also contributed work 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 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 for a number of forums that included: 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.