Gwen Nix is one of those people who knows who she is, exactly. She remembers where she came from and best of all, she says she knows where she's going.

Gwen was born to poor tenant farmers in a postage stamp of a place called Sweetapple, in northern Fulton County, Georgia. Her formal education fell to the wayside in the seventh grade to make way for homemade spelling bees, dictionary memorizing, babysitting baby brothers and picking cotton.