Beth Rand is a self-taught illustrator. 123 Gulls is a follow-up to her successful ABC Gulls, an alphabet book published in 2017 by Islandport Press. Born in Pittsburgh, PA, having a Navy dentist for a dad meant that Rand had an itinerant childhood, moving from Maryland to Rhode Island to South Carolina and even Sicily. Since graduating from the University of Maine, she has made that state her home. For twenty years, she lived in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, where she and her husband successfully raised three children to adulthood. One day, they hopped on the ferry to Peaks Island, Maine, and never returned. She now lives on the island with her husband and dog, in a home surrounded by seagulls, sunshine, and salt air.