Elisa Carbone was raised in Arlington, Virginia. She attended college at University of Maryland and also received two master’s degrees from University of Maryland, one in Speech Communication and the other in Education. She now lives part time in the Washington D.C. area and part time in the mountains of West Virginia.

These days I make my living as a writer. It's the best job I can think of. I use my imagination and then, by putting down on paper what I have imagined, I create a doorway that invites others to see what I have seen in my mind's eye. It leaves me with a sense of satisfaction that virtually nothing else in my life can give me.

For all of my books, especially the historical ones, I add research to the imaginative process. Usually my research involves reading books, articles, and original records, doing interviews, and visiting the sites where my stories take place. But the research gets really interesting when I decide to reenact some of the events in my characters’ lives. Whether that’s riding a train all night to Canada or trudging along the North Carolina beach during gale force winds, reenactment helps me truly understand what the people in my books must have experienced.