Author: Barbara Forte Abate
Born: November 27
Bio: I grew up in a small town in Dutchess County, New York, the third of five children. Although I started my first novel in 4th grade, it wasn't until a couple of years later in 6th grade when I knew for certain that I was hooked into the lifetime ambition to be a writer - forever after dreaming of places, events, and the unique characters that would inhabit them. 

It would be impossible to determine or otherwise explain where the intense desire to draw pictures and emotion with words on paper originates from, just as it would be impossible to ever abandon. Influences are everywhere and in abundance - people I've known as well as some who have merely crossed my path for a moment, places I've been or only seen. Love, loss, injury, and joy. Events in the everyday world that refuse to be discarded from thought or memory. And more then any single thing, my awesome Creator who inspires me in all thngs - not simply with the desire to create, but to pursue and persevere.