Born in 1969 in Germany, Vanessa Stelling grew up in Zürich, Switzerland. Upon earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design and a Master of Arts from New York University, Stelling worked as a fine artist, exhibiting her paintings in group and solo shows in Switzerland, Germany and New York. When her second child, Julian, was diagnosed with autism, she found solace in creative writing. Writing became her passion as it allowed her to make sense of her son’s highly complex developmental condition, process her grief and reveal the many unique gifts that her son and others like him have to offer the world.