Marianne Brandis was born in the Netherlands in 1938, came to Canada at age eight, and lived in British Columbia and Nova Scotia before moving to Ontario. She began writing in her teens, and continued while working as a copywriter at private radio stations and the CBC, and teaching English at Ryerson University. Since 1989 she has been a full-time writer. She has written historical fiction set in Canadian and British history, and novels set in modern-day Canada. She is now writing mainly creative non-fiction and life-writing.