Lyda Phillips is an award-winning journalist, novelist and screenwriter, with publishing credits in outlets as diverse as The Washington Post and Business Week. She has been a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators since 1998 and has studied fiction writing and screenwriting at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Md., and Watkins Institute of Art and Film in Nashville, Tenn. She lives in Maryland with her husband Jeff, also a journalist, her son, Gus, and her dogs Lucky and El Cid, who herds sheep.