Ron Smith is the author and editor of numerous books, including the award-winning Elf the Eagle and The Defiant Mind: Living Inside a Stroke. An excerpt from this book was translated into eighteen languages by Reader's Digest and published in over twenty-two countries. In 2002 he received an honorary doctorate from U.B.C. and in 2005 he was the inaugural Fulbright Chair in Creative Writing at Arizona State University. Elf's Family Tree is the sequel to his earlier illustrated children's book. He lives with his wife, the writer Patricia Jean Smith, in Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island where he daily searches the sky for eagles in full flight.