Valerie Mendes has been writing since the young age of six. Retaining her passion for writing and books while attending college, she graduated to a succession of writing and editing jobs with publishers. After encouragement while working as a commissioning editor and journalist for London publisher Marshall Cavendish during the 1960s, Mendes began to take her own writing seriously, and published her first book for children, Tomasina's First Dance, in 1992.