Robin McKinley (1952-)
Born in the town of Warren, Ohio, Jennifer Carolyn Robin McKinley, now the popular authoress of award-winning fantasy novels, was an only child. As a youngster she read voraciously, especially fantasy tales; she attended first Gould Academy as a young adult, then graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine. In between her courses and afterward she worked in a variety of occupations, including being an editor, a research assistant, and a clerk at a bookstore. Three years after her graduation in 1975, she published her first story, "Beauty;" "The Door in the Hedge" followed several years later. She has since moved to England to live with her husband, English writer Peter Dickinson.