CATHERINE WILSON lives on the island of Islay. She began her writing career when she was teaching at Secondary Schools in East Africa. Later she worked for the BBC and became the author of educational texts. She has collaborated with Ruth on several children's books all published by Ailsapres, which she helped to found in 2007. She has also trained as an artist and the line drawings in the margins of the text are hers. RUTH MACLEAN was born and raised in Toronto, and trained in Fine Art and Theology. From early childhood she has been familiar with the Tom Thomson territory in Ontario where her Scottish forebears first settled. Like Tom Thomson before her, she has always drawn inspiration from nature. She loves to paint and draw landscape, also to spin and dye wool with plants. She honours nature with her earth-spirit dolls and other sacred pieces.