Bonnie Jo Campbell's Women & Other Animals details the lives of extraordinary females in rural and small town Michigan. It won the Associated Writing Programs short fiction award and is now out in paperback. Her story, "The Smallest Man in the World", was awarded a Pushcart Prize; and her novel, Q Road, has been named a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers book.

Campbell grew up on a small Michigan farm in a house her grandfather built. When she left home for the University of Chicago, her mother rented out her room; she has since hitchhiked across the U.S. and Canada, scaled the Swiss Alps on her bicycle, and traveled with the circus. She has led adventure tours in Russia, the Baltics, and throughout Eastern Europe. After earning a master's degree in mathematics in 1992, Campbell began writing fiction. She received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Western Michigan University, and now lives in Kalamazoo.