Weight of a Piano (Cander) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1968?
• Where—Houston, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Houston
• Currently—lives in Houston, Texas


Chris Cander is a novelist, children’s book author, screenplay writer, and writer-in-residence for Houston-based Writers in the Schools. Born in Houston, Cander attended the Honors College of the University of Houston and continues to live in Houston with her husband and two children.

In 1994, she attended the Ploughshares International Fiction Writer’s Seminar at Kasteel Well, Netherlands. The following year, she attended the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference in Vermont, where she was able to work alongside some of her favorite authors.

Cander is the author most recently of the novel, The Weight of a Piano (2019). Whisper Hollow (2015) was selected as an Indie Next pick and nominated for the Kirkus Prize in fiction, while her award-winning novel 11 Stories (2013) was included in Kirkus’s best indie general fiction.

Her children’s book The Word Burglar (2014) received the silver Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards for Reading Skills & Literacy.

Cander well knows that the pen is mightier than the sword, but she’s willing to wield one of those, too. A former fitness competitor and model, she currently holds a 3rd dan in taekwondo and is a certified women’s defensive tactics instructor.

She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the Author’s Guild, the Writers’ League of Texas, PEN, and MENSA. (Adapted from Amazon.)