Alison Baird is a resident of Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and a graduate of Trinity College, University of Toronto, where she earned her Honours B.A. in English and her M.A. degree.

As an author she had an early start, publishing her first poems when she was 12. In 1994 her first book, The Dragons Egg, was published by Scholastic Canada: it was a national bestseller and a Regional Winner of the Silver Birch Award (a childrens choice award). It is now featured on school curricula across the country. The Hidden World and White as the Waves: A Novel of Moby Dick, both published in 1999, were Canadian Children’s Book Centre Our Choice selections, and White as the Waves was shortlisted for the IODE Violet Downey Book Award. The Wolves of Woden, the prequel to The Hidden World, followed in 2001 and was featured in Resource Links Magazine’s “Best of 2001.” Baird’s next project for Penguin was the The Witches of Willowmere (also a CCBC “Choice”), volume one of the “Willowmere Chroncles.” In 2003 her adult fantasy novel, The Stone of the Stars, and its two sequels were sold to Warner Aspect through the Sternig & Byrne literary agency and were published in 2004 and 2005. The Stone of the Stars received a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly.

Bairds short fiction has appeared in On Spec magazine, a Canadian periodical of original science fiction and fantasy for adults. Her story Dragon Pearl received an Honourable Mention in the 1996 edition of The Years Best Fantasy and Horror published by St. Martins Press. Another short story, Moon Maiden, appeared in the acclaimed young adult anthology What If. . .? Amazing Stories Selected by Monica Hughes (Tundra Books, 1998), which was an ABA Kids’ Pick of the Lists for 1998 and was featured on the New York Public Library’s Recommended List. Moon Maiden has since been reprinted in two Canadian school readers, and is available in an audio version from Prentice Hall.