Teacher and poet Heidi Mordhorst earned a BA in American studies from Wesleyan University, an MS in education from the Bank Street College of Education, and an MA in language and literature from the Institute of Education, University of London. She has published two books of poetry for children, Squeeze: Poems from a Juicy Universe (2005) and Pumpkin Butterfly: Poems from the Other Side of Nature (2009). Mordhorst currently resides in the Washington, DC, metro area, where she works as a Reading Initiative teacher with first-graders.