Emily M. Olson was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1960. She attended Western Connecticut State University and holds a bachelor’s degree in English. After studying journalism in college, she began working for local newspapers in Danbury, Westchester County, N.Y. and New Milford. She is currently working as a reporter in Waterbury, Ct., and is also a columnist and feature writer.

Emily began writing at the age of 8, when she penned her first poem, "Orange frost nail polish." As silly as it sounds, that poem was the beginning of a life-long relationship with personal writings. She has kept a journal since high school and continues to write poetry and short stories. She also has a book in progress.

The 11-11 project was an opportunity, at first, for Emily to spend time with friends, but soon took on a life of its own when she started her series of stories for the collection. More are on the way.

Being a newspaper reporter offers its own rewards for a writer. Meeting different people every day and covering news from the police blotter to land use meetings, however boring they may seem, open a window to the daily lives of people and how they think, particularly in the public sector. Her fiction is a reflection of past experiences and an ever-growing list of story ideas, based on her daily dealings with the public, family and friends. The old adage, "truth is stranger than fiction," is one of her favorite slogans when writing stories.

Her advice to anyone who says they "want to be a writer," is to just start.

"If you sit there and say `I want to be a writer,’ you aren’t one, until you get started," she says. "Writing is something I have to do to make a living, but it’s also part of the way I express myself and how I feel about the world around me. Finding out whether people care, at all about what I think, is why I continue to write. But even if I didn’t have any audience at all, I’d still do it.

"Some people paint, draw, create sculpture or music. Writing is the expression of the artist inside me."