Katie Keridan has been writing ever since she was old enough to hold a pencil. Born in Texas, her early stories focused on growing up on a ranch, filled with characters drawn from the horses, dogs, and other animals she saw on a daily basis. While she wrote first and foremost as a way to express herself, Katie also won her first writing contest as a child. This is one of her fondest memories, as the essay she crafted about Hank the Cowdog won her a set of books autographed by author John R. Erickson. Katie was always fascinated with human behavior, which is probably why she enjoys creating characters so much, and she received her B.S. in Psychology from Texas A&M University. Although she'll always have fond memories of her home state of Texas, something inside her knew she was destined to be a Californian, and she moved west to attend graduate school. She received her doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology from John F. Kennedy University, and when she's not writing creatively, Katie is a pediatric neuropsychologist who diagnoses cognitive disorders in children. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, yoga, tarot cards, and being with people she loves. She enjoys the writing of so many authors but credits Garth Nix, C.S. Lewis, Bonnie Bryant, Thornton Burgess, and Beatrix Potter as being particularly formative influences.