Rebecca Wells—Number One New York Times bestselling author of Little Altars Everywhere, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Ya-Yas in Bloom, and The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder—has parlayed her heritage as a member of a large extended family of Louisiana raconteurs into a notable career as an actress, playwright, fiction writer, and creator of a fan cult that is the envy of writers everywhere. Ms. Wells was born in Alexandria, LA and was graduated from Louisiana State University, where she studied theatre, English, and psychology. She studied jazz piano in Paris and became a professional actress under the tutelage of Maureen Holbert, studying the Stanislavsky method and also Jungian depth method combining spirituality and performance. She has supported herself at various times as a restaurant waitress, a cocktail waitress, a bartender, and an advertising copy writer. Born with a lust for exploration of new landscapes, Ms. Wells has traveled all over the United States just for the joy of it and has studied meditation and prayer with Choyum Tringpa Rimpoche, the Tibetan monk and teacher, and Allen Ginsberg. Author influences include Ginsberg and Walt Whitman and Anais Nin. She has kept journals since high school. Her plays have been produced in a variety of theaters in the Northwest. And her lifelong love of dancing, which began at home in Louisiana and continued in cowboy bars in the west and then on stage, actually jumpstarted her career as a novelist. She broke her foot dancing on stage in one of her plays and, unable to act or audition, she began writing books. Today, she lives on a remote island near the Pacific border of Canada with her husband, photographer Thomas Sworer. They share their lives with their King Charles Spaniel “Mercy.”