across the medieval legend that inspired her story in the book Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Myla Kabat-Zinn and Jon Kabat-Zinn. And while she loved it immediately, over the years she realized that she wanted to change the story from a pleasant romance about the war between the sexes into a parable that could touch people at any age or stage of life.

And so were born Galen and the bear he falls in love with. She soon enlisted her friend the artist Daniel Nevins, and together the two created Ravenna.

When she's not writing children's books, Stacey works as a certified nurse-midwife in North Carolina, and her career has taken her from western Indian reservations, to a center-city Bronx hospital, to the mountains of southwestern Mexico.

Stacey is also the creator of Midwife for Your Life, a web site, series of life-coaching programs, and blog.

She currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband and son.