Born in Ottawa, Bender lived in Toronto and Montreal before moving to Vancouver. He enjoys building three-dimensional lamps and is the creator of the Seven Wonders pop-up series. Waiting for Filippo, the story of the great Italian Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi, is his first children's book (Raincoast Books, 1995).

[BCBW 2003] "Kidlit" "Pop-up"