My name is M.P. Cooley. Right now I live in Campbell, CA.  I was born in Boston, and after moving to Naval bases across the U.S. while my Dad served in the Navy, settled in upstate New York. I lived in Auburn, NY for several years, where I learned to appreciate the Finger Lakes, gorgeous waterfalls, white hots, and William H. Seward.  In junior high I moved to Albany, attending the Academy of the Holy Names High School and working summers scooping ice cream at Stewarts. Albany is about 20 minutes away from Cohoes, where my parents met in the high school marching band, and which is the very, very loose inspiration for Hopewell Falls, the setting for my June Lyons series.

Having spent most of my childhood reading—I was sorely disappointed at age seven when I discovered that the library didn’t have every Nancy Drew book—I went on to study English Literature at Barnard College of Columbia University, graduating after completing my thesis on Arthurian legends and the Victorian imagination.  I went on to work in tax and law publishing, and spent the next decade as an editor, acquiring business, accounting, and economics books. During the last five years I have worked in administration at a nonprofit organization in Silicon Valley.

I enjoy going to concerts, driving my convertible, trying to surf and failing disastrously, and buying California apple cider and rating it as a pale imitation of New York cider.