Debby Dahl Edwardson is the acclaimed author of three books for young readers: Blessing’s Bead; My Name Is Not Easy, which was a finalist for the National Book Award; and the picture book Whale Snow. She married into and has lived for more than forty years among the Inupiat people of Alaska, of which she says, “It is not the culture I was not born into but it is the one I belong to, the one that has become home to me as a human being and as an artist.” She lives in Utqiagvik, Alaska, the northernmost community on the North American continent, with her husband.