Shelley Buck is the author of three travel memoirs: India Bound (2019), East (2013), and Floating Point (2010). Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, Shelley attended first grade at Amity Street School, on the site of the Amherst Academy, where the poet Emily Dickinson had studied. Shelley wrote poetry in grade school, but turned to journalism and memoir-writing after receiving degrees from Goucher College and and the University of Chicago. She was a founding editor of the pioneering national women's news syndicate, Her Say News Service (now archived at Harvard) and a scriptwriter on Knocking at the Gateway of Gold, a San Francisco history series produced by Haight-Ashbury Community Radio. Her travel writing has appeared in Narrative Magazine, and her news reporting in a variety of outlets, including Pacific News Service and Sacramento Magazine. She lives and writes in Western Washington, not far from Portland.