After earning a Masters of Social Work from Smith College, Debbie Stein took a job in community mental health on New York City’s Lower East Side. Later she traveled to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, during which time she published her first young-adult novel, Belonging. While living in Mexico, Stein also helped found the Centro de Crecimiento, a school for children with disabilities. Upon returning to the US, Stein continued with her writing career, writing fiction and nonfiction for young-adult readers. Stein recently edited “Crooked Paths Made Straight,” the autobiography of Isabelle Grant, the blind California teacher who in the 1950s became a world-circling blindness ambassador. Stein lives in Chicago with her husband, children’s author R. Conrad (Dick) Stein, and is an active member of the National Federation of the Blind