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BIOGRAPHY

 Even as a small child,  Shirley Tallman dreamed of being a writer. Born in Los Angeles, California, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area as a teenager, where she attended junior high and high school. She obtained her BA degree in Radio and Television at San Jose State University, while working as Traffic Manager, script writer and director for KNTV, a local ABC affiliate station.

 After college, Shirley flew to the Orient and the South Pacific as a flight attendant for Pan American World Airlines. Never one to waste a great opportunity, she used her travels to fill notebooks with ideas, story-lines and snap shots for future novels.

 Juggling marriage, children and her new writing career, Shirley wrote a syndicated newspaper column while working up the courage to tackle that first novel. To her surprise, when she finally did write it, it actually sold! To date, she's written fourteen books, including ten contemporary Harlequin/Silhouette romances published under the pseudonym Erin Ross. During her "romance" years, she placed #6 on Waldenbook's national bestseller list, and was nominated as "Best Desire of the Year," by "Romantic Times"!!

Currently, Shirley is writing a new historical mystery series for St. Martin’s Press, featuring Sarah Woolson, a feisty 19^th-century female attorney who defies tradition by squaring off against the all-male legal establishment. The first book in this exciting new series, MURDER ON NOB HILL, was released in June, 2004. The second novel in the series, THE RUSSIAN HILL MURDERS, followed in July, 2005. Shirley’s latest Sarah Woolson novel, THE CLIFF HOUSE STRANGLER, will be released in July. Shirley is pleased to announce that it has been chosen by The Mystery Guild as a July 2007 selection!

 Together with her screenwriting partner, Nancy Hersage, Shirley has written and sold television scripts to NBC, CBS, and ABC. Their movie, “THE BABYSITTER’S SEDUCTION”, originally aired on NBC and continues to play regularly on the Lifetime Channel. Their current project, “THE WAR MAGICIAN”, was recently bought for Tom Cruise by Paramount Studios and their story, “LILI”, is being produced for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation. 

 Shirley and her husband, Bob, divide their time between Eugene, Oregon, and Incline Village, Nevada, where she continues to work as a novelist and screenwriter.