Vance Shepperson is a 3rd generation Presbyterian preacher’s son. He attended schools in England, Switzerland, Illinois, and Florida. He earned a doctoral degree in clinical psychology in 1977 and worked as an Air Force psychologist, assistant professor at a doctoral program in California, and ran a psychotherapy practice with his wife.

Bethyl Joy and Vance served as missionaries in southwest China for five years, teaching counseling skills for another California university’s overseas graduate program. They have also lived in the Lake District of the UK, New Zealand’s south island; and now, the Big Island of Hawaii, where they still practice psychotherapy… but mainly write stuff.