Author Gloria Skurzynski was born in Duquesne, Pennsylvania in 1930. She was educated at Carlow University. She writes both fiction and non-fiction books for children and young adults.She is the author of more than sixty books for young readers. In 1992, her work Almost the Real Thing: Simulation in Your High-Tech World won the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award. She writes the National Geographic National Parks series and the Virtual War Chronologs series.