Michelle Slater is a scholar of comparative literature and president of the educational nonprofit Mayapple Center for the Arts and Humanities in Connecticut. She holds a Ph.D. in French literature from Johns Hopkins University.

Her long battle with and recovery from late-stage neurological Lyme disease served as the genesis for this book. Debilitated by the disease to the extent that she was no longer able to teach at her university or perform simple tasks like driving and reading, Slater spent several years pursuing every known treatment, from aggressive allopathic methods to holistic remedies. When all failed to deliver recovery, she discovered Dr. Sergey Filonov's dry fasting program and spent two months in Siberia under his care. She recovered completely from Lyme disease, regaining her memory and returning to researching, writing, hiking, and running. Since 2017, she has not experienced a single symptom.