Ruth McNally Barshaw is the author and illustrator of the Ellie McDoodle Diaries, a six-book highly-illustrated middle grade novel series with Bloomsbury, and is also the illustrator of four books and the author of four funny short stories for Amazon Rapids.

She received her first sketch-journal from a prescient art teacher at age 15, and has been keeping journals ever since (now numbering hundreds). She's worked as an illustrator since her freshman year in college, and now lives in Lansing, Michigan, where she writes, paints, reads, plays harmonica, and celebrates visits from her kids and their kids. She and her author husband Charlie travel extensively doing school visits and presentations. See her work at www.ruthexpress.com