Stephanie Peterson was born in Willingboro, New Jersey and primarily grew up in Jackson, New Jersey. As a child, she was consistently making up short stories that usually starred her family and friends. While in high school, she began writing the Welcome to Keystone series as a way of quelling boredom during the summer between her freshman and sophomore years. After high school, Stephanie attended Georgian Court University where she studied English Education while continuing to write the Welcome to Keystone series. Upon graduating, she moved to Lebanon, Pennsylvania where she began teaching English at a Catholic high school in Harrisburg. Throughout her career, Stephanie has expanded her writing to include a few poems, two fairy tale screenplays, and a series of TV scripts for a half-hour dramedy series called Super Teacher. However, her main project is still the Welcome to Keystone series, which is now a set of over fifty novels that chronicles the dramatic lives of the citizens of a fictional southern California town