April Halprin Wayland was born and raised in Southern California and graduated from University of California, Davis with a degree in Human Development. She worked for the Rand Corporation and was the governess for a Hollywood celebrity before starting a company called Positive Education, Inc. with Elizabeth Howland. After traveling to Europe and working on kibbutz in Israel, she returned to Los Angeles, married Gary Wayland, worked in the corporate world and four years later left her job to write full-time. Her poetry has been included in numerous anthologies and magazines.