Illustration veteran Sandy Appleoff calls home a third-generation farm in Falls City, Nebraska. Currently she is teaching and working on an MFA in stage and costume design at the University of Kansas. For more than 20 years her work in commercial illustration has appeared in a range of venues from corporate advertising, to magazines, to children’s books to large-scale installation murals. Sandy’s teaching career has also included the Kansas City Art Institute and Colorado Mountain College in Aspen.

Sandy’s cover art is loosely based on Appleoff Acres and Sandy’s studio is at the bottom of the lane. The pride of Appleoff Acres was her grandparents’ Rhode Island Red chickens and Black Angus cattle. The gentleman on the cover started farming the land with Sandy’s grandfather and, coincidently, he also resembles her father.