Heidi Tattrie Rushton has been a freelance reporter, social media manager, international recruiter, and preschool teacher. She also, like her Pet Tales protagonist, has experience working at an animal shelter, was a kid-activist through her writing, and rides the roller coaster of life with anxiety. She calls Fall River, Nova Scotia, home, along with her husband, two children, and a tiny dog who thinks she’s a cat. In 2021, Pet Tales was awarded the WFNS Joyce Barkhouse Writing Prize and was released by NP’s imprint, Trap Door Books, in April 2024.