Byrd Baylor - Authors Attending The Northern Arizona Book Festival

Byrd Baylor was born in San Antonio, Texas, and went to schools in Tucson, spent time on west Texas ranches and in Sonora (Mexico) gold mining camps. Today she lives outside Arivaca, Arizona, near the Arizona-Mexico borderline in high Sonora desert surrounded by enchanted mountains and canyons and arroyos.

Her books have become classics in their own time for children, parents, and teachers. Some of her books are Desert Voices, Everybody Needs a Rock, Hawk, I’m Your Brother, The Table Where Rich People Sit, The Desert is Theirs, and The Other Way to Listen. Her works have received numerous awards, including ALA Notable Book awards and Caldecott Honor Book awards.

Baylor lives in an adobe house that does not have electricity, but it does have three manual typewriters.

Photo Courtesy of Tom Lewis

Baylor writes: “I have written 25 or so children’s books, a novel, lots of essays and articles, all of them relating in some way to my passion for the desert southwest, its landforms and its plants and animals and people, and always its power.”