Bio for Joel B. Kirkpatrick: Joel was born in central Texas.  He grew up on a small farm and ranch. After college, he worked for various architects and engineers.  After several years, he moved into construction.  He eventually started his own construction company, concentrating mostly on commercial work. After an unfortunate divorce, he began writing songs and short stories for children.  His first published work was “The Boogaloo Bear”.  It was a book and cassette with songs.  The only complaint from parents was that their (kids) would keep playing it over and over, and over again. Joel claimed to be an audio-visual type, (not much of a reader) until a librarian at one of his construction jobs (an elementary school) convinced him to read a new book by J.K. Rowling.   He was hooked.  The adventure and storytelling of ‘Potter’ led him back to the ‘drawing board’ so to speak.  He began writing again.