Theo Fadel: Since illustrating The Chemical Wedding Theo Fadel has discovered she is the eleventh great grandniece of Robert Fludd who defended the Rosy Cross manuscripts in 1616. He mentions building his own wooden robots and other things impossible by "mere mathematics without the co-operation of natural magic." Theo lives in Holyoke, Massachusetts with her spouse Ruth and four cats in a charmingly old house that stands by natural magic. A native Charlottean and enthusiastic somnambulist, she grew up within a half mile of PTL's broadcast studio and Billy Graham's mother, watching Star Trek and Batman in a Peter Max bathrobe. When science sacrificed the moon program she turned to Dungeons & Dragons. She has a BA in Archeology from Bryn Mawr College and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University. She studied drawing, sculpture and painting at the Art Students League, NYC while working in an old German cabinet shop. Her first day there an aged Austrian said "One hundred years and you're the first woman we've seen." Currently her studio is in Easthampton, her website is theofadel.com and she's been in Massachusetts less than a hundred years. This is the first book she has illustrated.