Anika Fajardo was born in Colombia and raised in Minnesota. She is the author of a book about that experience, Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of Finding Family (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), which was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. Her debut middle-grade novel, What If a Fish (Simon & Schuster, 2020) was awarded a Minnesota Book Award in 2021. Her next middle-grade novel is Meet Me Halfway (Simon & Schuster, 2022). She is also the author of the Disney tie-in novelization Encanto: A Tale of Three Sisters. Her writing has appeared in various anthologies including Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction and We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World. A writer, editor, and teacher, she lives with her family in the very literary city of Minneapolis.