Denise B. Tanaka has a lifelong passion for writing stories of magical beings and faraway worlds. Her father inspired a love of art with his landscape paintings, portraits, and photography. Her mother inspired a love of books by reading aloud The Gingerbread Man and Mrs. Tittlemouse, so from a very young age Denise believed that cookies run away and mice can talk. She is sometimes sidetracked by nonfiction biography-true crime projects. A graduate of Sonoma State University, she pays the bills by working as a paralegal in immigration law. She has dabbled in genealogy for more than 35 years and is very grateful for the internet.