The Girls in the Picture

Melanie Benjamin was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and attended college there. She has been an avid reader all her life and firmly believes that a lifetime of reading is the best education a writer can have.

After college Melanie married and moved to the Chicago area to raise her children, but the desire to write was always there in the background. Soon she began writing for local magazines and newspapers before venturing into fiction. As Melanie Hauser she published two contemporary novels.

Now writing as Melanie Benjamin, she's incorporated her passion for history and biography into ALICE I HAVE BEEN her first historical novel; THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MRS. TOM THUMB is her second, and was published July 2011. Her book,The Aviator's Wife, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2013. The Swans of Fifth Avenue made the iBooks best seller list in 2016.

Melanie and her family still live in the Chicago area where she enjoys writing, taking long walks, and gardening.

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