Anne Runyon was born in Washington, D.C.. Summers spent on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, nurtured her love of the natural world. Her family inspired her to be an artist. She earned her BA in studio art from Carleton College, and studied design and children's literature in the Kerlan Collection while earning her MA from the University of Minnesota. She and her husband moved to North Carolina in 1982, where their son was born and grew up. Anne is a freelance illustrator and author. She works on paper with ink, watercolor, and colored pencil creating illustrations for environmental publications and exhibits. She writes and illustrates children's books, creates woodcut prints, and designs paper sculpture craft activities. North Carolina Wild Places--A Closer Look, edited by Lawrence S. Earley, is illustrated with her detailed habitat drawings. Ink and watercolor paintings enrich Anne's picture book, The Sheltering Cedar. Longneedle is a song of praise for the beautiful North Carolina longleaf pine forests.
