Jane Kirkpatrick is the author of twenty books and is a two-time winner of the WILLA Literary Award. Her first novel, A Sweetness to the Soul, won the Western Heritage Wrangler Award, an honor given to writers such as Barbara Kingsolver and Larry McMurtry. For twenty-six years she 'homesteaded' with her husband Jerry on a remote ranch in Eastern Oregon. She now lives with Jerry, and her two dogs and one cat on small acreage in Central Oregon while she savors the value of friendship over fame.