Born and raised in the United States, Amy Bronwen Zemser moved to Liberia with her family when she was eleven years old. The three years she lived in that African country proved to be grist for her writer's mill years later.

Always an avid reader, Zemser knew she wanted to be a writer even when she was a child. But, as she disclosed in a Publishers Weekly interview, "I wanted to be a lot of other things—a cowgirl, for instance."

At Simmons College she discovered a keen interest in writing children's literature. However, her first attempt at producing a book for children never got beyond the manuscript stage. Thanks to her determination, her next attempt was a winner. It became one of the top ten entries in the 1997 Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators competition and went on to be published...