Di Francis was born in London, England and went to school in Chelsea, before attending the Italia Conti drama school. Because, as she cheerfully admits, she couldn't sing or dance, she joined the circus to help pay her school fees and stayed for three years, learning skills like riding elephants and balancing on bare back horses, none of which were really suitable for job hunting in the normal world. She moved to Cornwall in the 1960's and studied sculpture at Penzance Art School. But writing had replaced acting as her real love. She wrote wildlife articles for a series of magazines. In the mid seventies she had two books published aimed for the tourist market. No royalties, just a single payment, Cornish Ghosts and Legends Of Cornwall. She moved to Devon but it would be 1983 before she really became noticed. Then her book Cat Country was published by David & Charles, causing a media sensation. She was the first person to photograph one of the mysterious big black cats reported to be seen throughout Britain. Not only had she photographed a big cat, she argued the animals were not escaped exotic pets, they were an unrecorded indigenous species. Shortly after Cat Country was published, the Royal Marine Commando's were sent to Exmoor on the famous Exmoor Beast hunt. And Di was with them. Ten years later she wrote the story of hunt in The Beast of Exmoor, published by Jonathan Cape. At the same time she became aware of smaller unidentified black wild cats in Scotland and moved there to study the animals, keeping the only captive pair. She was the editor of a rural newspaper in Banffshire for a time, and there wrote the acclaimed My Highland Kellas Cats. For the past ten years she has been writing fiction novels, both comedy and thrillers, and has combined her original love of the theatre with her later love, by writing stage plays. She has been traveling between Scotland, Turkey and Bulgaria because 'It is much easier to write in the warm.' Her most recent published fiction is Death on Dartmoor, published in paperback by Jonathan Downes in December 2012 and she has self published a number of fiction on Kindle.