Milly Janzen Balzer grew up in rural Minnesota, steeped in Mennonite lore. Her MA thesis was a collection of her stories. She has compiled four books of family history, and written empathetic poems from the point of view of her surgical patients when she worked as a nurse in a Swaziland hospital. She lives with her cat at Foulkeways in Gwynedd, Pennsylvania, where she bakes tvaybak and walks the trails.