Cecily von Ziegesar grew up in Manhattan and attended a small, private girls' school on the Upper East Side. She began writing poems and short stories and fantasizing about murdering people as soon as she could hold a pen. Gossip Girl was her first novel. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, daughter and son, and two nearly hairless cats named Pony Boy and Woody. She hasn't actually killed anyone--at least, not yet.