Before she could spell, Mary Richardson Daheim began making up stories. Daheim has worked as a journalist, an editor, a public relations consultant, and a freelance writer, but her preferred medium has always been fiction. She began a career that has resulted in more than fifty novels since 1982. The Pacific Northwest Writers Association awarded her the Literary Achievement Award in 2000. She was recognized into the University of Washington's Communications Hall of Fame in October 2008. Daheim is a direct descendent of past residents of the genuine Alpine when it existed in the early twentieth century, and she lives in Seattle.