Melissa started writing at the age of seven when she ran out of books to read and Mum and Dad couldn't get to the bookstore fast enough. Her first story was chock full of drama and suspense if not spelling (A blak hors had a baby hors and it was a wite). Things got better from there. I promise. She didn't actually take writing seriously as a career until she was thirteen and found out that the books she read were actually WRITTEN BY PEOPLE!! Up until then, she'd had a vague idea that stories were sucked out of the ether by some kind of machine out of Dr. Seuss. She suspects that might still be the case, only the machine seems to be in her head, which is slightly disturbing. After that, she never considered any career other than writing. Nobody thought to point out that Microsoft wasn't actually hiring novelists at that time. Very shortsighted of Bill Gates. Now she lives and writes on a bucolic island in the middle of the Puget Sound that can only be reached if you know the word to pay the ferryman.