Zilpha Keatley Snyder was born in 1927 and raised in California. She attended Whittier College in Southern California. While ultimately planning to be a writer, after graduation Snyder decided to teach school temporarily. But she found teaching to be an extremely rewarding experience and taught in the upper elementary grades for a total of nine years, three of them as a master teacher for the University of California at Berkeley. After all of her children were in school, Snyder began to think of writing again, and her first book, Season of Ponies, was published in 1964. Snyder's three Newbery Honor books are: The Egypt Game, The Headless Cupid,and The Witches Of Worm. Other award winning… books are The Trespassers, an American Bookseller Pick of the List and Cat Running, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and winner of the 1995 John and Patricia Beatty Award.