Children's author and poet Nancy Willard was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan on June 26, 1936. She attended the University of Michigan, where she received a bachelor's degree in 1958 and a Ph.D in 1963 and Stanford University, where she received her master's degree. In 1982, she received the Newbery Medal for A Visit to William Blake's Inn. She teaches at Vassar College in the English department and currently lives in Poughkeepsie, New York with her husband.