About the author

Dawn Rivers Baker grew up in Philadelphia, where she had many outlets for her artistic impulses. She studied dance at the Philadelphia School of Dance Arts, studied voice while on scholarship at Foxcroft School in Virginia, and got thoroughly involved in theater with various student productions at the schools she attended. It was not until after she married and started a family that she turned her considerable creative energy to writing. The Rise of the Phoenix is her first novel. In addition to fiction writing, Ms. Baker is the award-winning journalist behind The MicroEnterprise Journal. Her work on behalf of the nation's 22 million microbusinesses earned her the 2003 Small Business Journalist of the Year award from the Syracuse (NY) District of the U.S. Small Business Administration, and she is included annually in the prestigious Marquis' Who's Who in America® and Who's Who Among American Women®. Ms. Baker lives with her husband of more than 20 years, and their four children, in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York.