Jennifer Skutelsky was born in South Africa and now lives with her daughter and three immigrant pets in San Francisco. Her first book, Breathing Through Buttonholes: The Story of Madeleine Heitner, is listed at the Yad Vashem Library, and her memoir, Tin Can Shrapnel, was an Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist. Grave of Hummingbirds, her MFA thesis at San Francisco State University, won the Clark-Gross Award in the Novel.