Deke Moul­ton is a writer cur­rent­ly liv­ing in the US Pacif­ic North­west. She is a for­mer US Army drill sergeant and trained as an Ara­bic lin­guist dur­ing her time in ser­vice. Don’t Want to Be Your Mon­ster, her debut book, won the Syd­ney Tay­lor Book Award and was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Mid­dle Grades of 2023. Her fol­low-up, Ben­ji Zeb is a Rav­en­ous Were­wolf, was a Syd­ney Tay­lor Notable Book and a Jew­ish Book Coun­cil mid­dle grade finalist.