Mary Alice Downie was born in Illinois, but her Canadian parents returned home, and she grew up in Toronto. After graduating from university, she had the usual range of jobs for an English grad — steno pool at MacLean-Hunter, editorial assistant for a medical journal, publicity manager for the Canadian branch of Oxford University Press. After marriage to John Downie, she moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and wrote film, play, and book reviews. She and her family now live part of the year in a 125-year-old cottage near Kingston, Ontario.
