Thea studied medieval and renaissance history, art and architecture in Oxford, England, lists Lake Como, Italy, as her favorite travel destination, and helped study nuisance black bears in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, but she still believes there’s no place like the grand prairies of South Dakota. She spends her days as the director of The Outdoor Campus, a nature center in Sioux Falls where kids can get dirty outdoors and learn to fish, camp, hunt, kayak and canoe. When she’s not at her day job, she enjoys writing, reading anything she can get her hands on, and volunteering with the South Dakota Festival of Books and The Big Read. She and her husband Tim and daughter Maddy spend family time traveling, gardening, geocaching and catching butterflies.