Kiel Phegley is the author of over a dozen books for young readers. His work includes stories and comics starring popular characters like Sonic The Hedgehog, The Amazing World of Gumball and Halo. Strikers is inspired in part by his youth in and around Flint, Michigan where he read too many comics and played on a variety of sports teams poorly. A graduate of Hamline University's MFA in Writing for Children, Phegley lives with his family in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where is a lecturer on Children's Literature at Eastern Michigan University.