This series came about after winning second place on a fan mystery story for "Silence of the Loons," an anthology by thirteen Minnesotan authors and published by a Minnesota publisher. Mystery fans were given the same list of words as the authors used and were asked to write a 4000 word story using at least four of the eight given words as clues. The story was sent to an editor with the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) not for editing but for direction to turn it into a series where the mystery "destination" would be each state. About two years after mulling it over and thinking of ways to do a whole series, a call for submission for a 5-minute mystery site came up and I tried my hand at writing the state mysteries as 1500 word short stories. What they were wanting and what I was wanting to do were not meeting in the middle. Enter Aidana WillowRaven and the rest is pretty much history - two publishers and six months later, the first in the series was born.