Mary Losure, author of The Fairy Ring, has worked as a reporter for Minnesota Public Radio and a contributor to National Public Radio. She lives with her husband in Minnesota.

Timothy Basil Ering is the illustrator of many award-winning books, including Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery Medal-winning The Tale of Despereaux. He lives in Massachusetts.

When I was a child, I read mostly fantasy. When I grew up, I discovered that nonfiction books don’t have to be just facts —they can be true stories that read like fiction.

Now I write that kind of nonfiction for kids.

Isaac the Alchemist is the story of young Isaac Newton, whose childhood search for magic grew into a truly magical career.

Wild Boy is about a real wild boy trying to find a home in the human world.

In The Fairy Ring, two young girls fool Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the world’s most famous detective, into believing they’ve taken photographs of real fairies.

I still love Narnia, but you can’t go there. You can travel the real world. I want kids to know that amazing things can happen there, too.

Three Things You May Not Know About Me:

I once lived on a farm and had two pet goats.

Long ago, I played ice hockey for the University of Vermont. Ours was the first women’s team in the school’s long history of the sport. Some of us had only figure skates. At games, we used the men’s practice jerseys because we had no uniforms of our own. Today’s women’s hockey teams play much better than we ever did. But we had fun, and I learned to skate backward.

I’ve just learned how to play something called the 12-bar blues on the ukulele. It reminds me of the mathematical patterns Isaac Newton discovered about the universe. Once you get it, you can play bazillions of tunes. It’s kind of like . . . magic.

The real world is an amazing place.

“I always think of illustration as a form of acting,” says Timothy Basil Ering. “Each time I approach a project I need to become the character I’m depicting. And then I have to choose the appropriate medium that will allow me to speak in that voice.”

Anyone who knows Tim Ering would agree that he himself is a character, as inimitable as any he might portray. Before landing at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena California, the author-illustrator-to-be indulged his longtime love of the sea as a boatswainsmate aboard the USS Kitty Hawk, sailing to points as far afield as Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, Australia, Sri Lanka, and Africa. And since finishing art school—where he discovered influences as far removed as Michelangelo and Dr. Seuss—the artist has approached his work with a spirit of adventure and originality that reflect his singular approach to life.

Tim Ering’s first picture book with Candlewick had its beginnings in a silly string of words he thought up to amuse himself as he meandered to favorite fishing spots on Cape Cod. Years later, at an urban garden created by schoolchildren in Pasadena, he began sketching a scarecrow. “I knew at that moment,” he says, “that Frog Belly Rat Bone had found a home.” And so sprung up the tale of a boy who finds strange, specklike treasures, and the unforgettable creature who watches over them while they grow. With its surreal artwork full of subtle tones, bursts of color, fantastical figures, and a quirky, hand-lettered text, Tim Ering’s picture book debut exudes all the whimsy of an inspired imagination.

That imagination was put to a very different challenge with 33 Snowfish, a novel by Adam Rapp for which Tim Ering created not only the haunting cover image, but also interior drawings that represent notebook sketches of a troubled teenage character. “Whenever you receive a manuscript, you have to get into character,” he says. “In this case, I also had to imagine how this character would draw, and how his drawing might change or shrink on the page according to his changing state of mind.” Tim Ering steers his range in yet another direction to explore a more classical style—with a contemporary flair—in The Tale of Despereaux,Kate DiCamillo’s first Newbery Award–winning novel. Says the illustrator, “My mother may have been a mouse in her past life, as I watched her save and help so many mice in our house while I was growing up. The illustrations I’ve done of Despereaux Tilling are, in a way, my tribute to her.”

Tim Ering’s artwork has appeared in books, magazines, theater sets, private murals, and fine art galleries. The invariably paint-splattered artist lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts.