M. B. Manthe was born and raised in Massachusetts. She dropped out of high school when she turned sixteen, and began working in a local hospital. After earning her GED, she attended Community College of Rhode Island, then transferred to Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She graduated in 1995 with a B.A. in English Language and Literature. She spent two years at the University of Arizona, completing her Master’s degree in Library Science in December 1997. She lives in Topeka, Kansas, with her husband, two teenage sons, two dogs, two cats, over 1000 books, and never enough time to read as much as she’d like.