Cornelia Funke is a German-born author and illustrator best known for her novels Dragon Rider, The Thief Lord, and her immensely popular Inkheart trilogy. Cornelia is an internationally best selling and award winning author, and her novel Dragon Rider spent 78 weeks on the top of the New York Times bestseller list. She’s also been named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world today. Her Mirrorworld series, though only two of the novels have been released to date, is quickly gaining note among readers worldwide. Cornelia has won numerous awards, including the Batchelder Award for The Thief Lord and the Book Sense Book of the Year Award for children’s books for Inkspell. Originally wanting to be an astronaut, Cornelia is now hailed as the German J.K. Rowling because of her fantastic tales which draw large fan bases from around the world. Often set in fantastical settings of magic where the impossible is possible, her novels allow people of all ages to escape the world where their outlandish childhood dreams can be a reality. Cornelia says of her writing that, “I do write fantasy, not only as an escape from imprisonment and sad circumstances, but because I think it is, in many ways, more realistic, and it makes us question the world and its arrangements.” In many interviews, when asked what a person needs to be a writer, Cornelia’s advice is that a person needs, at least, a pen that can write on skin, because ideas need to be written down before they are forgotten. Cornelia lives in Los Angeles, California and has two children, Anna and Ben.