Lynne Rae Perkins is the author of "Criss Cross," which won the Newbery Medal, the nation's most prestigious prize for children's book. Perkins grew up in Cheswick, PA, near Pittsburgh, majored in printmaking at Penn State, and attended grad school at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She moved to Leelanau County, MI, in 1987 with her husband Bill, a furniture maker, and now lives in northwest Michigan with their two children, Frank, 14, and Lucy, 12. This article presents an interview with Perkins, who talked about her first break and how she became an artist and a writer.