Peach Guǒyuán was born in Georgia, but grew up in Washington, DC. Peach’s parents were in love with Georgia’s state fruit—peaches. When their daughter was born, they felt Peach was the perfect name for their sweet new baby.

When Peach was 4 years old, her parents moved from Georgia to Washington, DC. Peach felt that her life became uncomfortable once they moved to DC. Among other things, no one is named after fruit in D.C. This was especially true in the fancy prep school that Peach attended. All the kids there had regular names like Mike or Jill. No one had interesting or unusual names.

One day Peach had a rather life-changing experience. It was during one of her fancy prep school’s fancy field trips. They were hiking on part of the Appalachian Trail. Peach dreamily trailed behind her group. She soon discovered that she was quite lost. She had gone off-trail to look at what she thought was a fox’s den. It wasn’t.

Peach sighed. She sat down on a rock across from the fake den. Chewing her thumbnail, Peach considered what to do next.

“That finger taste good?” came a deep and rumbly voice. Peach jumped up and shrieked. Where did that voice come from?

“I’m over here,” the voice rumbled. It came from the fake fox den. A trap door was hidden under the leaves. Peering out from underneath was the largest head that Peach had ever seen.

Peach was in shock. She was looking at a real-live giant. Was she dreaming? What was going on? Peach had so many questions. The giant was patient and tried to answer all of them. It turns out that James (that was his name) was an Appalachian Giant. The Appalachian Giants once roamed the east coast of America. They had to go into hiding when the first humans arrived. They decided to live underground, and that was when they made the Appalachian Mountains—really the mountains are hollow and filled with rather elaborate homes, stores, and so on.

“Are there other giants, other than the Appalachian Giants, I mean?” asked Peach.

James climbed out and up onto the ground. He stood as tall as the tallest tree on the forest floor. And he wasn’t much thicker.

“Of course,” he answered plucking up a young sapling and picking his teeth with it. “Where there’s a mountain range, you’ve got giants living underneath. How else are mountains formed, after all?”

From that moment on, Peach decided to spend the rest of her life getting to know the mountain giants of the world and writing about them—as fiction of course—starting with this very page.