Melissa Borowicz Betrus is a native Western New Yorker. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from SUNY Fredonia and her Master of Arts degree in creative writing from Miami University of Ohio. Her work has appeared in various anthologies. Life Among the Milkweed is her first book. Through this project she became an amateur entomologist though she has had a passion for the monarch butterfly since discovering her first caterpillar as a child. She now spends her summers raising monarchs from egg to adulthood.