Francesca G. Varela was raised in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2015 with a major in Environmental Studies and a minor in Creative Writing. During her time at UO, Francesca had pieces published in campus publications including Envision: Environmental Journalism and The Ecotone Journal of Environmental Studies. She then attended the University of Utah, and in 2018 she received her master’s degree in Environmental Humanities. Francesca has written articles for The Wayfarer, Oregon Wild, 350PDX, and the Oregon Sierra Club. She now lives in the Portland area and continues to write environmentally-themed novels. Francesca’s dream of becoming an author began in third grade, and her writing career had an early start; she had a poem published in the 2002 edition of The Anthology of Poetry by Young Americans. When not writing or reading, she spends her time practicing piano, figure skating, walking her dog, Ginger, and exploring Oregon’s wild places.