Margaret (Meg) Chittenden

Biography

Best-selling author Meg Chittenden grew up in the North of England, near the North Sea and just a little south of the Scottish border. After graduation, she worked for a time as a civil servant. Which in England means you work for the government. Her first job was with the Ministry of Works in Baker Street, fictional home of Sherlock Holmes! But the job was boring and she went to work for J. Arthur Rank at Pinewood Studios, where she met a lot of movie stars and wasn't bored at all.

Later on she met a handsome American and moved to the United States. She had the idea all Americans owned orange groves or oil wells, but found out that wasn't quite true, so she went back to work.

She started out writing articles for the Sunday supplement of a local newspaper, then wrote short stories for Good Housekeeping and other magazines. Eventually, she switched to novels in several genres. See bibliography .

Now that she's writing mystery novels, Meg spends a lot of her time asking questions of police officers, FBI agents, forensic anthropologists and medical examiners. So far these experts have been wonderfully patient and helpful. If you find errors in her books, they are hers not theirs! (Remember the slogan, which she coined, "To err is human, to forgive makes the reader divine.") You might also remember that Albert Einstein said: "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."

In 2003, at Sleuthfest, a terrific conference for mystery writers, held annually in Florida, Meg learned how to handle, load and shoot several types of firearms. She has no desire to own a weapon, but she wanted to be able to write a little more knowledgeably about them. She might now be able to come up with something more imaginative than "He had a gun. He shot the gun."

In the 35 years she's been writing, Meg has published over 100 short stories and articles, a book on writing, three children's books, and 33 novels that include romance, suspense, mystery, and mainstream. Some of her books deal with reincarnation, magic, or ghosts. Her novels have been widely reprinted abroad and have appeared on many bestseller lists, including one heady Thursday on the USA Today list, though not yet on the lofty New York Times list. She is a recipient of the Pacific Northwest Writers Lifetime Achievement Award for "Enhancing the stature of Northwest Literature," an Anthony Award for "Noir Lite," one of her short stories, and the Otter for "More Than You Know." "Snap Shot" was nominated for a Calavera award. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers of America, American Crime Writers League, and the International Association of Crime Writers.

Meg has spoken at writers and readers gatherings in Washington, British Columbia, Colorado, Oregon, Massachusetts, Idaho, New York, California, Illinois, Nevada, Nebraska, Texas, Wisconsin, Georgia, Florida, Minnesota, Hawaii, Washington D.C., Virginia, New Mexico, Arizona, Tennessee, Alaska, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Alabama and Japan. (She's a self-admitted convention junkie!)

Meg's husband Jim, aka He-who-walks-ahead, is her research assistant, chauffeur and navigator. He understands really cool stuff like North, South, East and West, and the difference between upstream and downstream--all of which makes him very useful to his direction-challenged wife. However, Meg has recently become the owner of a hand-held global positioning system and is all set to navigate by herself. Look out world!

When she's not writing, or talking about writing at one of the many conventions she speaks at each year, Meg enjoys family gatherings, hiking the beach or rainforest, dancing, (gimme that old time rock and roll!) reading, singing soprano with HARMONY,a local chorus, and traveling.