MAGGIE DE VRIES's novel, Hunger Journeys, won the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize and was called "historical fiction at its best" by CM magazine. She has written seven other works for young readers, as well as Missing Sarah, a memoir about her sister, a victim of serial killer Robert Pickton, which was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award. A former children's book editor and a writer-in-residence for the Vancouver Public Library, she now focuses on her own writing and teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia and. She lives in Vancouver.