Byron Grush was born in Naperville, Illinois. He has been an independent, experimental film artist, and an educator, teaching film and art at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago and Northern Illinois University. He is the author of The Shoestring Animator, a how-to book about animation art, All The Way By Water, and Once Upon a Gold Rush, historical novels. He lives in Delavan, Wisconsin, paints, writes fiction, and studies Tai Chi.