Laurel Flores Fantauzzo's nonfiction book, The First Impulse (Anvil), was named a Philippine National Book Award Finalist and a best book of 2017 by CNN Philippines and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She teaches in the English department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Her young adult novel, My Heart Underwater (HarperCollins 2020), was published in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. It has received starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. She divides her time between Metro Manila and Honolulu, where she lives with her wife.