Shirley Reva Vernick's interviews and feature articles have appeared in Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal, national newspapers, and the publications of Harvard, Johns Hopkins and Boston Universities. She also runs a popular storytelling website, storybee.org, which is used in schools, libraries, hospitals and homes all over the world. Shirley graduated from Cornell University, majoring in economics and nutrition, and is an alumna of the Radcliffe Writing Seminars. She grew up in the town where the blood libel happened, as did her father, whose family was directly victimized by it. She now lives with her husband, two daughters, and two frisky dogs in Western Massachusetts, where she has recently helped make her town a certified fair-trade community.