Mary K Pershall grew up on a farm in Iowa, heart of the American corn and Bible belt. She escaped to Australia as a freshly graduated teacher in 1974, and has lived here ever since. Beginning her career editing and writing for children's magazines such as Pursuit and Comet, Mary went on to write young adult novels such as the highly acclaimed You Take the High Road, Stormy and A Long Way Home. Drawing infinite inspiration from her ongoing career as a teacher, Mary now writes books for late primary and early high school students. As well as writing for the enormously successful Aussie Bites series (Too Much To Ask For and Making Jamie Normal), Mary has written a popular tween trilogy with daughter Anna, focussing on the pitfalls of popularity; entitled Two Weeks in Grade Six, A Term in Year Seven and Escape from Year Eight. Most recently, Mary has drawn on spooky experiences in her own childhood to create the Ruby Clair series. Ruby, a reluctant hero, just wants to go to school and live a normal life, but the ghosts she can see have other ideas. Ruby Clair: The Trouble with Ghosts and Ruby Clair: Ghost with a Message are now available. A third book is on its way. As well as writing and teaching, Mary gives talks at schools about what it was like to grow up in a haunted farm house in Iowa.