Robin McKinley is an author of fantasy and adventure stories. Ms McKinley grew up as a "military brat" moving around regularly. She now lives in England with her husband, also a writer, Peter Dickinson. She is apparently fond of whippets (a type of dog) and roses. Other authors she mentions on her website as influences or inspirations are Frances Hodgson Burnett, Charles Dickens, Hardy, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, H. Rider Haggard and J.R.R. Tolkien.