Betsy Byars was born on August 7, 1928, in Charlotte, North Carolina, the daughter of George Guy and Nancy Rugheimer Cromer. She attended Furman University from 1946 to 1948, and received her bachelor's degree in English from Queens College, Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1950. She married Edward Ford Byars that year. The Byarses live in South Carolina and have four children.

When her husband was a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Byars began her writing career, publishing articles in the Saturday Evening Post, T.V. Guide, and Look magazines. As her family grew, she began writing books, and in 1962 her first book for young people, Clementine, was published. Nine years later she won the Newbery Medal for her novel The Summer of the Swans. Many of the ideas for her books spring from her children's personal experiences. Byars writes during the winter months and spends her summers...