Ivan Sanchez was born in the Bronx, New York City, in 1972. He left the inner city in 1993, and earned an associate's degree in applied science from Virginia's ECPI College of Technology and a bachelor's degree in management from the University of Phoenix. He currently holds a supervisory position with a major manufacturing organization in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and works as a youth advocate and motivational speaker in his spare time.Ellen Sandbeck is an organic landscaper, worm wrangler, writer, and graphic artist who lives with (and experiments on) her husband and an assortment of younger creatures -- which includes two mostly grown children, a couple of dogs, a small flock of laying… hens, and many thousands of composting worms -- in Duluth, Minnesota. She is the author of Slug Bread & Beheaded Thistles and Eat More Dirt.