Ellis Vidler wrote her first mystery at the ambitious age of eight. She has since learned that miraculous insights do not make good endings. After taking classes and studying, learning by trial and error, she won the 1990 South Carolina Writers Conference prize for short fiction for "Restitution." Haunting Refrain, published by Silver Dagger Mysteries, is her first romantic suspense/mystery.

Growing up in Florence and Huntsville, Alabama, Ellis encountered many fascinating people and heard all kinds of stories that continue to influence her. Although she writes from her imagination (no criminal experience), she loves research and can easily follow a thread until she forgets the original subject.

Ellis studied art and English at All Saints College for Women in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where she spent too much time enjoying gumbo and tiny little biscuits at The Old Southern Tearoom and too little time studying. After college, having no clue about anything, she wangled her first job as a technical illustrator, drifted into technical editing, and then switched to writing industrial training materials. Along the way, she tried a few other things, but writing remained her first love. She also edits fiction.

She has a few old garden roses struggling to survive; practices photography in the theory that if she takes enough shots, at least one will turn out; and reads, reads, reads. Ellis is a member of Carolina Crime Writers and Sisters in Crime. She lives with her husband, dog, and cat in the South Carolina Piedmont, where she is working on another mystery--this one takes place in Williamsburg and on the Carolina Coast.