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Rue is a math and physics wizard and a former Sweet Briar girl. Her publishing experience began in the nation’s capital, where she founded Starwood Publishing. At Starwood, she published all sorts of books about gardening, history, art, politics and photography, and quite a few of them won prizes, which is always exciting for a publisher. Just as she was thinking about enjoying some long lazy days in her own garden, she ended up packing the wagons and moving deep in the heart of West Texas, to her husband’s family ranch.

She did end up with a beautiful xeriscaped garden there, but she also found that publishing books is a hard thing to get out of your blood, and she started right back up making books again. She founded Bright Sky Press in Albany Texas, in a beautiful historic limestone building across from a spectacular county courthouse.

With more than thirty years of publishing experience, she has now set up camp in Houston, where three-fifths of her grandchildren live. This working grandmother is a true testament to the old Clairol truth, “I’m not getting older; I’m getting better."

Ellen grew up in a well-designed, francophilic home in Houston. Her love of beautiful design and all things French led her to Parsons School of Design in Paris and opened her eyes to the wonderful ways that the truly good aspects of Texas are welcomed by the big wide world. Ellen came on back to Texas to get a taste of Austin life and a degree from The University to hang on her wall. After working in book design for a big publisher, she eventually set up shop on her own in Houston as a graphic designer.

Ellen has managed not only to create a really great design firm that has made beautiful pieces for every kind of business nestled under the diverse Houston skyline, but she simultaneously found a great husband, Mike, who worked with her to create two very personable children, who as of middle school, are thriving. They all live together with Cedar, the super beagle, and a couple of cats.

Since she always liked Oz, Narnia and the Little House on the Prarie better than real life, Lucy wanted to grow up and write children’s books. Once she got to college, she realized that she might need to get another job while she worked on her stories, and she realized that one of the big accounting firms was not likely to hire her with her skill set.

Publishing/teaching, teaching/publishing, it was a hard decision, but the lure of the Big Apple was pretty great to an ex-coed looking for a little adventure. She worked with some amazing people and learned an amazing amount about books, before she headed back west. And since there wasn’t much trade publishing going on in Texas at that point, she got to rewind and choose teaching. After teaching provided her with not only a new calling, but a husband, she found herself barefoot and pregnant, then home with nothing but two babies and an overactive imagination. She edited, wrote, taught some nursery school, and realized that all the little boxes of teaching, publishing, editing, and writing that she had always used to categorize her life might be opened up and used together in completely new ways.

So now that she’s joined forces with Rue and Ellen, her sweet husband Sam the sports psychologist and their two girls have gotten really good at fixing their own breakfast and cheering her on as she goes off every day to be Editor Girl, ready to conquer tall manuscripts in a single bound.