Irma Sheppard, Author, was born in Germany in 1943, emigrated to Canada in 1948 and to the United States in 1962. She lived in Michigan, California, Virginia and for 33 years in Tucson, Arizona, where she was in private practice as a psychotherapist. She and her husband, Karl, currently live in Asheville, North Carolina. Their daughter and her husband now live nearby. Irma wrote Raindreams in 1982 in Norfolk, revised it in Tucson and waited until she found the exact right illustrator to publish it in Asheville.