Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, DeAnn Wiley has been a self-taught painter for five years. She began with traditional acrylic painting and just began her journey into the digital art world with a focus on children's illustrations. Her debut picture book, Sarah Rising, was published by Beaming Books in May 2022. She is an advocate for social justice, as she sits at the intersection of many identities: Black, woman, queer, and disabled. When she is not painting or illustrating, she is working on her final year of grad school for Counseling Psychology.