HEATHER MATEUS SAPPENFIELD is a writer, wife, mother, teacher, and yogi with lifelong roots in Colorado's landscape and history. Her stories and essays strive to suss out beauty and meaning in our conflicted world. TWILIGHT EMPIRE is her on-line publication—a pause, a breath—offering brief, nourishing narratives. The View from Who I Was and Life at the Speed of Us are her YA novels, the latter a Colorado Book Awards finalist. Her story collection, Lyrics for Rock Stars, was featured on Colorado Public Radio, earned a Ben Franklin Award, an Earphones Award from AudioFile magazine, and was a finalist for the Audies. Her stories have also won the Danahy Fiction Prize and the Arthur Edelstein Prize, garnered seven Pushcart Prize nominations, and were a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Award. Her novel, The River Between Hearts, was a Moonbeam Awards Medalist, a Nautilus Awards Medalist, a Reader’s Choice Award Medalist, and winner of a Reading the West Award. Heather has taught writing in high schools and colleges. Her interviews with writers and articles about craft have appeared in Writer’s Digest, School Library Journal, and The Writer’s Chronicle. She lives with her husband in the heart of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.