Anne Laurel Carter: I was born in Don Mills in 1953. I never dreamed of becoming a writer. As a teenager I hoped to become a pediatrician, but suffered from a bad case of wanderlust - a need to travel. I left home at 17 to milk cows on kibbutz in Israel, then worked in England, a Jean Vanier home in France, and California.
I returned home at 22 to complete a teaching degree, spending summers in Quebec and France learning to speak French. I loved working with children and happily became an ESL and French teacher. I taught in Cree communities of Northern Quebec until my hip dysplasia (the same condition that cripples golden retrievers) forced me into Montreal General Hospital to have my right hip rebuilt. After 9 weeks in a body cast, months in a wheelchair, then crutches and canes – I walked again!

At thirty-two years old, I got married and immediately had four children in less than five years. My husband wanted a baseball/hockey/basketball team, but I said, “Four’s perfect!” Besides, I suffered from a new passion: writing! I couldn’t travel with my feet but I could travel with my imagination. Every evening in our house was, and still is, devoted to reading.

Susan Whelehan: Susan Whelehan works mornings teaching 6- and 7-year-old children how to read so that they will someday enjoy the books she writes in the afternoons. She has written 16 picture books for young readers, poetry for young and old, and co-authored Meditating Mamas: A Spiritual Resource for New Mothers with Rebecca Cunningham. She is currently writing for the award-winning children’s television show The Big Comfy Couch. Her husband and two sons help her with her garden in Toronto. Her wedding earrings still fit.