Deni Durham was born in 1954. She studied at the University of Missouri-Columbia during the 1970s. She established Eridu Farms, an organic vegetable farm, in 1979 with her then husband, Terry Durham. While working as a freelance and staff writer for the Boone County Journal from 1985 to 1989, Deni Durham became actively involved in various organic and sustainable agriculture organizations, including the Missouri Organic Association and the Ozark Small Farm Viability Project (OSFVP). She continued to work for these organizations on various projects, primarily conference coordination and other projects, throughout the 1990s. Since 2002, she has written fiction and non-fiction under the name Deni Cary Phillips, as well as working as a grant writer. From 2009 to 2012 she served as a project coordinator at the Small Business Transportation Resource Center of the United States Department of Transportation. Since 2014 Deni Phillips has operated Aqualine Communications, a consulting firm that offers writing, marketing, conference, and graphic design services.
Terry Durham was born in 1955, and studied agriculture at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He served in various leadership positions for a number of sustainable agriculture organizations, and served as president of the Missouri Organic Association in which he was active from 1991 to 1998. In 2004 Terry Durham began River Hills Harvest Farm, which is the largest grower of elderberries in the United States. River Hills Elderberry Producers, the growers cooperative Terry Durham established, uses wild-gathered and cultivated elderberries from other growers in the state to produce juice and other value-added products.
