This book was published 2014 by Untreed Reads Publishing .

Liza Ketchum grew up in a family that placed a high value on the arts, particularly storytelling, music, and dance. Her father, also a writer, loved to tell about Liza's great-grandmother, a singer and pianist who caused a scandal when she eloped with a musician at the height of vaudeville's popularity. That story, along with the vaudeville songs that her grandfather used to sing, inspired Liza to write The Life Fantastic . She is the author of sixteen published books of fiction and nonfiction for young readers, including the recently published Out of Left Field , set in contemporary Boston with echoes to the Vietnam War era. Her middle grade novel, Where the Great Hawk Flies , won the Massachusetts Book Award for Young Adults. Liza and her husband divide their time between the Boston area and southern Vermont.