Gay Balliet graduated from Muhlenberg College with an A.B. in English. After teaching high school for many years, she received her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from Lehigh University. When she is not busy teaching college writing, she is hitting the road and assisting her veterinarian husband, Edgar, who is a large animal practitioner in the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch country. Both of Dutch descent themselves, the Balliets revel in the array of animals they treat daily: bats, wolves, tigers, elk—a rainbow of exotic animals—as well as horses of all breeds.

Lions and Tigers and Mares—Oh, My! is Gay’s fourth book and the sequel to her first commercial success, Touched By All Creatures. Her first book was the scholarly Henry Miller and Surrealist Metaphor: ‘Riding the Ovarian Trolley.’ Her second commercial book, Lowell: The True Story of an Existential Pig, is about Lowell, one of the Balliets’ ten pot-bellied pigs.

When not accompanying her husband on his rounds, Gay likes to write, garden, run, ride, scuba dive, and converse with the animals.

Some of Gay's favorite things:

• Favorite book: The Hog Book by William Hedgepeth
• Favorite actor: Goldie Hawn
• Favorite food: donuts
• Foods she avoids: donuts
• The ultimate wish: That each person who reads this book gives a good and caring
  indoor or outdoor home to a needy animal at a humane shelter.