Budge Wilson was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and attended Dalhousie University and the University of Toronto. Since 1984, she has published twenty-nine books, with twenty foreign editions appearing in the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Romania, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Australia. Her stories appear in ninety anthologies, in Braille format, and as audiobooks. Her many prizes include seventeen Canadian Childrens Book Centre Our Choice awards, the City of Dartmouth Book Award, the Canadian Library Associations Young Adult Canadian Book Award, the Marianna Dempster Award, the Ann Connor Brimer Award, and the Lilla Stirling Award. Her collection of short stories The Leaving was named a Notable Book by the American Library Association and was later included on the associations list of The 75 Best Childrens Books of the Last 25 Years. Wilson has also been awarded the Municipality of Halifax Mayors Award for Cultural Achievement in Literature and received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Armbrae Academy, Halifax. In 2004, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada.