Born in Fresno, California in 1950, Diane Iverson grew up on a 40 acre farm just outside Kerman, California. Her father raised cotton and alfalfa and operated a small dairy farm. They also had chickens, pigs and several pets. Her mother worked as a bookkeeper for a local manufacturing company. There were 5 children in the family.

Iverson's maternal grandparents settled in the Kerman area and began farming with two mules in 1936. They raised cotton, alfalfa and operated a dairy. They came from Fayetteville, Arkansas. Her paternal grandparents also farmed cotton in the area, coming from Oklahoma. Climbing trees, catching frogs in the irrigation ditch and looking for litters of new kittens between bails of hay were ordinary parts of growing up. Helping her grandma can fruit, feed chickens, milk cows and pick cotton were also part of her farm-family experience.

In addition to a farming childhood, as a young adult she spent five years in a wilderness cabin built by her husband near Round Mountain, California. Raising her two daughters in this beautiful atmosphere, surrounded by wildlife, had an impact on her later interest in children's nature books.

Iverson has worked as a nanny, a restaurant owner, doing home health care, as a graphic artist, as a master artist for a decoy carving company, as an art teacher and as a director for a service for homeless and low-income families.

She began her career as an author and children's book illustrator with the 1989 publication of I Celebrate the World. She has written and/or illustrated 12 books since that time. Several of her books have received awards.

She is also director of Open Door, a Coalition for Compassion and Justice program that addresses the needs of low-income residents in Yavapai County, Arizona. She enjoys birding, hiking, camping and backpacking. She is active in the Audubon Society and American Birding Association, and currently has a birding life list of over 570 North American species.

She has two daughters, five grandchildren and one great granddaughter. Her husband, Doug Iverson, is a retired American Literature and Creative Writing teacher. She and her husband enjoy volunteer work, doing projects that support various environmental and charitable organizations including the Nature Conservancy, the Audubon Society, Project Wildbird, Highlands Center for Natural History, Hope for the Hopeless and the Coalition for Compassion and Justice. They live near the Granite Mountain Wilderness Area just outside Prescott, Arizona.