Cynthia Rylant grew up in a small town in West Virginia. As a child, she never planned to become a writer. She lived in a four-room house with her grandparents, who grew and hunted most of the family’s food. Cynthia’s town did not have a library, but she read comic books and Nancy Drew books, and spent a lot of time outside.

After high school, Cynthia went to college in Charleston, West Virginia. There, in one of her English classes, she discovered that she loved books. After she graduated, Cynthia worked in the children’s department of a library. She had never read many of the books that children know and love — but she came to love them as an adult!

Cynthia was inspired to write children’s books of her own. She began writing at home but didn’t tell anyone about her stories — she was too shy. Instead, she just sent them off to publishers in New York. About two months later, an editor responded. One of Cynthia’s stories, When I Was Young in the Mountains, was going to be published! Cynthia Rylant was on her way to becoming a popular, well-known children’s author.

Cynthia continued to write while raising her son, Nathaniel, in Kent, Ohio. She has written over fifty acclaimed novels, chapter books, and picture books, including the Caldecott Honor Books When I Was Young in the Mountains, illustrated by Diane Goode, and The Relatives Came, illustrated by Stephen Gammell.

Now Cynthia and her family live in Oregon, where she takes care of her pets, reads, writes, and enjoys life at home. “I don’t write every day,” she says. “In fact, I sometimes go months without writing anything. Then suddenly, I’ll ‘sense’ a book in my head. I sit down with pen and paper and the next thing I know I’ve got a story going, then the next thing I know I’ve finished it! (I’m a quick writer.)”

Of Missing May, Cynthia Rylant says, “I’m not sure where this story came from. But I was raised in rural West Virginia and I knew a lot of characters like Ob and Cletus and May. I just felt I was writing about my own people.”