Goldie Gendler Silverman grew up in Nebraska and learned to camp in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, and Arizona. After several years of teaching English at the high school and university levels, she began writing remedial reading textbooks, co-authored four cookbooks, and then went on to write Backpacking with Babies and Small Children, published first by Signpost Books and later by Wilderness Press. Mother of three grown children and two almost-grown grandchildren, Goldie now hikes all over the world, but still backpacks with her family near her home in Seattle.