Merrill Wigginton, Diane: - Diane Merrill Wigginton is the winner of the Silver Benjamin Franklin award for Angelina's Secret, the first book in her Jeweled Dagger Series, and was born in 1963, in Riverside, California, then moved to San Diego when she was eight years old. She enjoyed spending her summers in Burley, Idaho, with her mother's parents, Florence and Orval Merrill, and it was during her time on the farm, riding horses, herding cattle and taming the wild kittens born in the haystacks every year, that Diane developed a love of storytelling and dreamed that one day she would tell her stories to others.