Michael Wescott Loder, born in Pennsylvania, has hiked, climbed and caved his way across the United States, been an Air Force officer, photographer, park naturalist--and an academic librarian for more than 30 years. "Wes" has worked in eight different states, but is now retired and lives next to the family farm in a passive-solar, off-grid house he designed himself. There he gardens, writes, plays the Highland Bagpipe and watches his grandchildren grow.

Wes wrote his first childrens' story when he was seventeen, and over the last quarter century has completed 19 other stories. He published his first YA novel, "The Golden Horn," in 2007 and "The Nikon Camera in America, 1946-1953" in 2008. "Beetle: A Biography of a Virtual Girl" is his first venture into ebooks.