Michael Dymmoch was born in Illinois and grew up in a suburb northwest of Kentucky. As a child she she kept a large number of small vertebrates for pets and aspired to become a snake charmer, Indian chief or veterinarian. She was precluded from realizing the former ambitions by a lack of charm and Indian ancestry and from the achieving the latter by poor grades in calculus and physics. This made her angry enough to kill. Fortunately, before committing mayhem, she stumbled upon a book titled Maybe You Should Write a Book and was persuaded to sublimate her felonious fantasies. Moving to Chicago gave Michael additional incentives to harm individuals who piss her off. On paper of course.