Larry Good grew up in Nottoway County, Virginia. Blackstone High School awarded him a diploma, the University of Virginia a B.A., and the College of William and Mary a master's degree in Education. He played football in high achool, both offense and defense, as number 66. The team won a Regional title. He met the Tackling Dummy on the Practice Field of Blackstone High School. The first thing after college, he became an English teacher, and before long he had spent most of his time in classrooms. When The Tree of Ticket Leaves takes Meri to The Lands, the first one after The Autumnforest is The Land of Upsidedown Learning. You learn through your feet. (Meri takes off her shoes and socks.) The one after that is The Land of Handwriting Speech. There's no sound when someone speaks, but you can read it. The air of this land is unforgettable. For a while the author went to work for the C & P Telephone Company. The business office was a large room filled with service representatives at their desks talking to customers on telephones. When the man of the house called, the service representative wrote "mr cld" on her records. From these five letters came The Mistercald River which flows right through the middle of The Lands. You can see it from The Tree of Ticket Leaves, which is in The Land of Pink Windmills.
