Sylvia Dickey Smith was born and raised in Orange, Texas - the land of Cajuns, cowboys, pirates and Paleo-Indians. She entered this world backwards - feet first and left-handed - and has been described as doing things backwards ever since! At seventeen, with a year of high school to go, Sylvia married a "preacher-boy" and soon thereafter became known as the preacher's wife. Years later, she and her family lived on the island of Trinidad, W.I. for a few years, where she developed a love for other cultures, races, religions - she virtually found her voice.
At age forty she took her first college course, and in less than six years graduated with honors from the University of Texas at El Paso, earning a B.A. in Sociology and a M. Ed in Educational Psychology. Sylvia founded her own business conducting management effectiveness training, individual and marriage counseling, and assertiveness training for women. She also facilitated therapy groups for sexual offenders on parole, and for adult survivers of sexual abuse. For several years she served as an adjunct professor, worked in the field of rehabilitation, and directed operations for a long term care facility. Currently living in Georgetown, Texas, when Sylvia isn't writing she's busy scheduling and conducting writing workshops and promoting her books around the country.