About the Author

Born and raised in Rhode Island, Michelle Marquis earned her bachelor's degree at Bryant University and taught at a private school in Massachusetts before writing Mikey and the Mysterious Door. Although she taught various subjects, math and language arts were her primary interests, and her extracurricular activities included serving as the Math Olympics Coach for students in third through eighth grade, as well as writing numerous plays for her middle school students to perform.

 
As a middle school teacher, Michelle noticed that many students’ impression of math (before she began working with them) was that it was extremely overwhelming and very boring. As a result, she made it her goal to make learning mathematics more exciting and less intimidating so students would feel more comfortable and confident in their math skills. Although she was very successful in achieving this goal with her middle school students, she felt that if this attitude could be instilled in younger students at the elementary school level, they would be more likely to embrace math with a greater eagerness and desire to learn it as they got older. This is what inspired Michelle to write a series of educational books that teach math concepts in the form of a rhyming story, with Mikey and the Mysterious Door being the first one to be published. 

Michelle married her high school sweetheart, Gary, in 1990, and they moved to Connecticut in 2009. Michelle is the mother of three grown children and one grandchild. Her other published works include a poem entitled, My Patriot, which commemorates her husband and his 23-year service in the United States military.