National Bestselling Author Mary Ellen Hughes, aka Emmie Caldwell, grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where, although leaning strongly toward the arts, she was gently guided toward a career that was more likely to provide a living. She therefore earned a degree in Medical Technology and worked in hospital laboratories, including the clinical chemistry lab at NIH.
But those leanings called, and eventually she began writing. Seeing her name in print under several freelance feature articles in the Baltimore Sun and other publications became addictive, and she soon switched to fiction.
A few short stories (mysteries, of course) were published, then her first two mystery novels were picked up by a small press. Acquiring an agent led to larger publishers, and before long (well, relatively speaking) she had eleven published mystery novels.
It then became time to write under a new name – Emmie Caldwell (Don’t ask; it makes sense in publishing) – and she began writing the Craft Fair Knitters Mystery Series as Emmie.
Mary Ellen has lived most of her adult life in Maryland, where she and her husband raised their two children, a smattering of cats, and plenty of vegetables, flowers, and, of course, weeds. She continues to enjoy tennis after having aged out of skiing and ice skating. She’s also done all of the cooking and crafts written about in her novels, though her protagonists are much better at them as well as being younger, prettier, braver, and more clever, all of which makes writing about them so perfectly agreeable. Much more fun (for her) than sticking to precision and facts in a medical lab, where killing off people was not highly recommended.