ate DiCamillo was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, raised in Florida, and currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her widely-praised books for children include: Because of Winn-Dixie (a Newbery Honor Book), The Tiger Rising (a National Book Award finalist), The Tale of Despereaux (a Newbery Medal Book), the New York Times bestselling Mercy Watson series, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (a #1 New York Times Bestseller), Great Joy (a New York Times Bestselling picture book), and most recently her second picture book, Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken. Kate's fifth middle-grade novel, The Magician's Elephant, will be published by Candlewick Press in Fall 2009.

The feature film inspired by The Tale of Despereaux will reach theaters world-wide on December 19, 2008. The film rights to The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane were optioned to New Line, with Wendy Finerman producing. The film rights to The Magician's Elephant were sold to Julia Pistor at Fox 2000, executive producer of Charlotte's Web and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.

In addition to writing, Kate teaches in the MFA program, Writing for Children and Young Adults, at Hamline University.