Orel won the Oberon poetry prize in 2010 and a commendation in the Second Light Live Competition, 2016. Thelonious Mouse, her fourth picture book, was awarded a Crystal Kite, 2012, from SCBWI, and she’s written other prize-winning books for young people. Her poetry has appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review, Oberon, Poetry Bay, Light, Lighten Up Online, New Verse News, Socialism and Democracy and other reviews, anthologies, and in her chapbook, What Remains (2011, Finishing Line Press).She teaches at the Walt Whitman Birthplace, Huntington Station, NY. For more info: www.orelprotopopescu.com