Jill Esbaum lives on a farm, on a dusty gravel road, where green walls of rustling corn surround the yard each summer. She and her husband raise corn, soybeans, and hundreds of pigs. A dozen cats hang around the back door each evening, waiting for her to slip out with leftovers (a dangerous time to go barefoot, she says!).

Her favourite season is autumn, when she gets to drive a huge, complicated tractor through crackling fields to help with the harvest under a blue, blue sky. And every day she wakes up feeling blessed, knowing how lucky she is to spend part of each day doing what she loves, and loving what she does - writing for kids.

Melissa Crowton grew up amongst the neighbourhoods of rural Utah where there were a lot of empty roads and open skies to look at, but not much else. She found traveling by book was a quite agreeable alternative, and has been enjoying a vast array of stories ever since.

Melissa graduated with a degree in Illustration from BYU in 2012 and a Masters in Illustration Practice from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2016. She lives in the East Bay of California and explores the steep hills of San Francisco when she can. But not for too long, for she still has more reading to do.