USA Today bestselling author Cynthia St. Aubin is the author of The Case Files of Dr. Matilda Schmidt and the Jane Avery mysteries, Private Lies and Lying Low. She wrote her first play at age eight and made her brothers perform it for the admission price of gum wrappers.

A steal, considering she provided the wrappers in advance. Though her early work debuted to mixed reviews, she never quite gave up on the writing thing, even while earning a mostly useless master’s degree in art history and taking her turn as a cube monkey in the corporate warren. Because the voices in her head kept talking to her, and they discourage drinking at work, she started writing instead.