Shelley Burbank Short Bio
Shelley Burbank is a mystery and women’s fiction author and journalist based in Maine and San Diego, California. Her short fiction has been published nationally in True Story, True Love, and True Confessions magazines. Regional and literary publications include San Diego Woman Magazine and The Maine Review. Shelley was also the co-writer of a full-length, nonfiction memoir, THE LAST TEN DAYS: Academia, Dementia, and the Choice to Die by Martha Risberg Brosio.
Shelley’s debut women’s fiction/mystery novel Final Draft: An Olivia Lively Mystery was published by Encircle Publications, a traditional small press, in March 2023. She is working on book two in the series.
Shelley Burbank Long Bio
Shelley Burbank was born and raised in Maine. She attended Bangor Christian High School and then earned a bachelor’s degree in Secondary English Education from the University of Maine at Farmington. While at UMF, she took an introduction to fiction writing course and was a member of the UMF Literary Guild. Her short story “The Hat” was included in Thunder Eggs: The Best of Student Writing from Across the Curriculum, and several short stories and poems appeared in student literary magazines.
After college, Shelley worked as a tutor, substitute teacher, supermarket cashier, baker, personnel clerk, bookseller, administrative assistant, library volunteer, clubhouse attendant, receptionist, legal assistant, and publishing assistant for an academic press while continuing to hone her writing skills.
Shelley married her college sweetheart soon after graduation, and she and her husband and daughter settled down in a small town in Maine where she continued to write short stories and novels, eventually gaining publication in the national magazines True Story, True Confessions, and True Love and in literary magazines The Maine Review and The Katherine Press Review. She was also a contributing writer to her community’s weekly newspaper, The Waterboro Reporter, for many years, focusing on stories about local artists and entrepreneurs.
In 2019, she co-wrote a nonfiction memoir, THE LAST TEN DAYS: Academia, Dementia, and the Choice to Die by Martha Risberg Brosio. The book was traditionally published by Myers Education Press and received several good reviews in the academic sphere.
Shelley’s favorite writers include Jane Austen, Ellie Cosimano, Janet Evanovitch, Jennifer Crusie, and Candace Bushnell along with Maine writers Tabitha King, Carolyn Chute, Bill Roorbach, Richard Russo, Kevin St. Jarre, and Stephen King.
When she’s not reading or writing, Shelley enjoys knitting, binge-watching Sex and the City, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Gilmore Girls, hiking or walking, and spending time with friends and family. She belongs to a fabulous writing group, The Advance Copies, in Limerick, and is passionate about literacy, women’s issues, and the arts. She keeps a personal journal to stay sane, considers coffee a necessity for a life well-lived, and can’t seem to Marie Kondo her book collection despite the best of intentions.
Want to know more? Sign up to receive news and posts via email below.