German born and New York raised, Donna Lambo-Weidner has sailed the seven seas with swashbuckling pirates, crossed blades with sword-wielding knights, and circumnavigated the moon in a cardboard box, all before the age of eight. Now that she’s earned a Bachelor of Arts, lived on two continents, and raised four kids (humans, not goats), Donna writes books for children based on her childhood adventures laced with her actual life experiences—dogsledding in the arctic, spending the night in a salt cave deep beneath the Earth’s surface, and reaching into an elephant’s open mouth to count its tremendous teeth, to name a few.

This Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) former regional advisor for Germany and Austria is now a Marin Co-County Co-ordinator for the California San Francisco North & East Bay region. She presently lives above a vineyard-strewn valley with her globe-trotting husband, a rambunctious retriever, and a treasure chest rumored to have belonged to Captain Kidd stuffed with scrolls listing lands and experiences yet to be explored.