Elizabeth Ridley was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she fell in love with books at the age of six. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and a master's degree in creative writing from The University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, where she studied under now-Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. In 1994 she received a Hawthornden Fellowship to Hawthornden Castle in Lasswade, Scotland. Before turning to writing full-time Liz's many unorthodox jobs included stints as a meat slicer in Milwaukee, a nanny in London, a cherry harvester in Norway, and a houseparent for handicapped teens in rural Wales. Since 2001, she has owned and operated The Writer's Midwife, a home-based freelance critiquing, editing, and publishing consultation business.