ANN TOWELL was born in Chatham, Ontario, and grew up in Wallaceburg. She was co-finalist, with her husband, world-renowned photographer Larry Towell, for the Dorothea Lange/Paul Taylor Award for work on the Mennonites, a segment that appeared in the 1994 summer edition of Descant magazine. Her first children's novel, The Hollow Locust Trees, was published by Black Moss Press in 1998. She has four children: Moses, Naomi, Noah, and Isaac, and a granddaughter, River Annabelle. She lives near Shetland, Ontario, on a 75-acre farm.