Elizabeth Barnum (Betsy to her friends and readers) has always had eclectic interests and loved to read. She has been a writer since she was 10 years old and has worked as a reporter and editor for community newspapers and in the communications department of a state environmental agency. Also a lifelong lover of nature, she founded and ran a nonprofit, called the Great River Earth Institute, whose purpose was to help people examine their relationship with the earth and see themselves as part of nature, not separate from it.

Betsy has a BA in English, a Master of Liberal Studies degree, and a PhD in English, the latter two earned when she was in her 50s and 60s. In the course of these studies, she taught college classes in literature and writing. Since finishing, she has been a freelance editor working mostly with academic writers. This is her first book.

Betsy is also a gardener on her urban lot in Minneapolis, Minnesota, about a block from the Mississippi River, growing vegetables, flowers, and herbs as well as native perennials attractive to pollinators. She has two sons.