Marie Flanigan grew up in Virginia as the youngest of three girls. Star Wars and comic books dominated her youth. After being a disc jockey, a web developer and a librarian, she settled into freelance writing. She is an avid gamer and reviews video games and books for GameIndustry.com while working on her novels. She and her husband and three dogs live happily and somewhat chaotically outside of Washington DC. One Big Beautiful Thing is her first novel.