Cassandra Clare spent much of her childhood travelling the world with her family, including one trek through the Himalayas as a toddler where she spent a month living in her father's backpack. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates. After college Clare worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids where she reported on Brad and Angelina's world travels and Britney Spears' wardrobe malfunctions. Her first professional writing gig was a short story called The Girl's Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord in an anthology of humour fantasy.