Born in 1961 in Texas, Elizabeth Letts grew up in Southern California. From an early age, she was an avid horseback rider, and she competed in equestrian events. After graduating from the private secondary school Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts, Letts studied history at Yale. She served in the Peace Corps and became a certified midwife at the Yale School of Nursing. Her literary work often centers on her passion for horses and riding, such as in her historical books The Perfect Horse and The Eighty-Dollar Champion, and her children’s story My Blue Ribbon Horse.

Letts’s passion for history and underappreciated historical stories, as well as her knowledge about horses and riding, shines through in the true story The Ride of Her Life. She pieces together information from primary sources such as newspaper articles, letters, interviews, and Annie Wilkins’s autobiography, The Last of the Saddle Tramps, to create a complete picture of Annie’s journey from Minot to Hollywood.

A farmer from Minot, Maine, Annie Wilkins (1891-1980) was born in Mechanic Falls, another small town in Maine. After a few years in New Hampshire, Annie grew up in Minot, where her family continued a long tradition of farming their land.