Annabel and Edgar Johnson have written many books together for young adults. They spent twelve years traveling the American West in a small camp-trailer, where they identified ideas and material for books in the back roads and deserted towns of the Rockies. At first their books featured people and events from lost history, but in later years they began to set books in contemporary times or, like A Memory of Dragons, in a near-future setting which allowed them to treat contemporary subjects along with concerns about inner knowledge and selfworth.

Edgar Johnson was born in a Montana mining town. As a young man he tried many different occupations, including railroad hand, baseball player, and musician. In the 1940s he went to New York City to study art. He presented some exhibits there of ceramics, woodcarving, and jewelry. In New York he met Annabel, who...