John Steven Gurney grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He studied illustration at Pratt Institute and spent summers drawing caricatures on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. Since 1984 he has illustrated board games, advertisements, magazine stories, and more than 70 books for children, including all of the titles in the Adventures of the Bailey School Kids series and the A to Z Mysteries series. He now lives in Brattleboro, Vermont. Dinosaur Train is the first book he has written and illustrated, and it was inspired by his son's love of dinosaurs and trains.