Sally Alexander was around storytelling at a young age, influenced by her two grandmothers who were yarn spinners themselves: one who shared wonderful stories of growing up in South Africa, and the other, a writer of old who labored away on a typewriter to commit her tales. When Sally’s own early rendition—a book of poetry—was published in the local newspaper when she was a child, she was hooked.

Sally’s chapter book series The Adventures of Caitlin & Rio is based on a manuscript from twenty years earlier that she unearthed on a floppy disc while tidying up her study. Her beloved cat Rio had recently passed away from an illness and she was inspired to pen the series as a tribute, all these years later.

Sally writes whenever an idea strikes and often that means scribbling away on an old envelope, all of which she keeps filed away for use when she’s completing the book. She believes that a great book is one that has characters the reader can relate to and draws them into the story. When she develops her characters, Sally finds that she “listens” to them and they lead her to interesting paths for the book. She hopes that her stories instill a lifelong love of reading in her readers and that they are, especially, a source of empowerment for young girls as they read about strong female characters who stand up for others and stay true to themselves.

When she isn’t writing exciting adventure stories for children, Sally enjoys knitting and embroidering, birdwatching, photography, table tennis, and traveling. Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, she lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband and their two Ragdoll cats, Red and Nemo. The Adventures of Caitlin & Rio series currently has five volumes.