Mara Rostov was born in Austria of German parents. She received her formal education in American universities, paying her way by working as a fashion model.Upon receiving her degrees, she taught comparative literature for seventeen years. She quit teaching when Putnam published her first novel, Eroica (involving Neo-facism in Germany), which became a Book of the Month Club selection.Rostov was married twice and widowed twice. After her sons left for college, she worked for eleven years with an international disaster aid organization which took her around the world several times.There was no time in her life since childhood when she did not write. She filled notebooks and journals with short stories and novels. Today she lives on the wild North Coast of California with a Siberian Husky and two loving cats. She continues to observe the three rules of the writer's life: no holidays, no vacations and no retirement.