Kerry Madden-Lunsford is the author of the Maggie Valley Trilogy for children, which includes Gentle’s Holler (2005), Louisiana’s Song (2007) and Jessie’s Mountain (2008), set in the heart of the Smoky Mountains and published by Viking. Her first novel, Offsides, was a New York Public Library Pick for the Teen Age in 1997, and her book Writing Smarts is full of story sparks for young writers. Up Close: Harper Lee made Booklist’s Ten Top Biographies of 2009 for Youth. Kerry teaches creative writing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and at Antioch University in Los Angeles and has written essays for the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, Salon, and the Birmingham News among others.