Carole Lawrence was born in Alice, Texas, but spent her childhood in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the setting for Looking for Mary Gabriel. She studied music from a very early age, and received a B.A. with a major in music from Louisiana State University. She later moved to New Orleans, where she taught piano. Carole has attended the bread loaf writers' conference, the Vermont Studio Colony, and Ragdale, an artists'colony in Lake Forest, Illinois. She earned a Master's degree from the MFA program for writers at Warren Wilson College near Asheville, North Carolina. Looking for Mary Gabriel is her first novel. Carole and her husband currently live in the Woodlands, Texas. They have one adult son.