E lizabeth Rhoda Holden was born in Leatherhead, England on June 5, 1943. Growing up as a bricklayer's daughter in "the English stock-broker belt," she was miserable at school. The place where she knew the most happiness was in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, where her grandfather lived and where her family moved when she was eleven. Wandering around the countryside and listening to her grandfather's vivid, spooky stories formed her warmest childhood memories. Today she still lives in the region.

She left school at seventeen and worked at a bank and several libraries before finding a career writing books for young people.

Louise Lawrence is the pen name she consistently uses. Lawrence says she never consciously sought to become a writer. Rather, an idea came to her while she was doing housework. She felt compelled to write it down, and it turned into a...