Born in Auburn, New York, on May 27, 1927, M. E. Kerr (Marijane Meaker) was an avid reader as a child and spent a great deal of her free time writing stories and poems. After grade school, she attended Stuart Hall Academy in Staunton, Virginia, where she quickly established herself as a rebellious and disruptive student. She was suspended once but managed to complete high school and was accepted at the University of Missouri, where she studied English. Upon graduation, she moved to New York City and worked for E. P. Dutton, a large publishing company. At the same time, Kerr continued writing and sold her first story to the Ladies Home Journal, an accomplishment that launched her freelance writing career.

Kerr, as Ann Aldrich, wrote several adult novels in the 1950s and tried her hand at suspense fiction using the name Vin Packer. She published...