Eleni Ilia was born in Athens, Greece, in 1967. She spent her childhood in Attica and Crete. Her time on the island of Crete served as the main source of inspiration for A Heart’s Little Refugee. Most summers of her life were spent in Loutraki, where she now lives permanently.

She studied Education at the University of Patras (1985–1989) and received her Ph.D. in Modern Greek Literature from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 1996, with a dissertation on the work of Elias Venezis. She has taught for thirty-six academic semesters in higher education, training in-service teachers at the Universities of Athens, Patras, and the Aegean. She also taught for seventeen years in primary schools in Attica.

Eleni Ilia has participated in national and international conferences and teacher training seminars, focusing on creative writing and the educational use of literature. She has served as an editorial board member and content editor of the literary and academic journal Diadromes. Routes to literature for children and young adults. ISSN: 1105-1523, and as General Secretary of the historical association Women’s Literary Team. She was also involved in a university-led research project on the study, teaching, and promotion of Greek children’s literature, funded by the Greek State.

Her work has been honored by several institutions, including the Greek Ministry of Education and the Greek section of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). She is the author of several books, has edited conference proceedings, and has contributed essays and literary works to numerous collective volumes and journals.

Through both her publications and her teaching, she seeks to highlight that every literary work is a shared creation between the writer and their readers—whether children or adults.

More at: www.eilia.gr