Dandi Daley Mackall won her first writing contest as a 10-year-old tomboy. Her 50 words on "Why I Want to Be Batboy for the Kansas City A's" won first place, but the team wouldn't let a girl be batboy. It was her first taste of rejection. Since then, Dandi Daley Mackall has become an award-winning author of nearly 500 books for adults and children of all ages along with the 2014 Hallmark movie, My Boyfriends' Dogs. Dandi has written for every age group and genre, winning three Christian Book of the Year awards, Mom's Choice & Amelia Bloom Awards, Notable Book, Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People National Council of Social Studies, Children's Book Council, the Angel Award, Award of Excellence from Chicago Book Show, the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Mystery, and Top Teen Read by New York Public Library. Her horse fiction, including Winnie the Horse Gentler, has sold over a million copies. Dandi received the Helen Keating Ott Award for distinguished contribution toward promoting high moral and ethical values in children and young adult literature. With Love, Wherever You Are, based on the incredible true story of her parents, Army doctor and Army nurse in WW2, received PW and Booklist starred reviews. Dandi writes from rural Ohio, where she lives with her family, including her horses, dogs, cats, degus, chinchilla, tortoise, birds, and an occasional squirrel, deer, or raccoon.
