Even as a small child, Shirley dreamed of being a writer. Born in Los Angles, California, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area as a child, where she attended junior high, high school and college. After college, Shirley flew to the Orient and South Pacific as a flight attendant. Never one to waste a great opportunity, she used her travels to fill notebooks with ideas, storylines and snap shots for future stories, which were continually taking shape in her mind. Juggling marriage, children and her new writing career, Shirley wrote a syndicated newspaper column while working up the courage to tackle that first novel. To her surprise, when she finally did write it, it actually sold! To date, she's written fourteen books, including ten contemporary Harlequin/Silhouette romances published under the pseudonym Erin Ross. During her "romance" years, she placed #5 on Waldenbooks' national bestseller list, and was nominated as "Best Desire of the Year" by Romantic Times ! Together with her screenwriting partner, Nancy Hersage, Shirley and written and sold television scripts to NBC, CBS and ABC. Their movie, "THE BABYSITTER'S SEDUCTION", originally aired on NBC and continues to play regularly on the LIFETIME channel. Currently, Shirley is writing a new historical mystery series for St. Martin's Press. The books are set in 1880s San Francisco, and feature Sarah Woolson, a feisty 19th-century attorney who squares off against an all-male legal establishment. The first book in the series, MURDER ON NOB HILL, was released in June of 2004. The second Sarah Woolson book, THE RUSSIAN HILL MURDERS, came out in July, 2005. The third book in the series, THE CLIFF HOUSE STRANGLER, was released in July, 2007, and was chosen as a Mystery Guild August 2007 selection.

For a number of years, Shirley wrote a popular syndicated newspaper column in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Shirley was twice nominated as "Best Desire (romance) of the Year" by Romantic Times.
Shirley's romantic novel, "CHILD OF MY HEART" made #5 on Waldenbook's national best seller list.
The first book in Shirley's new historical mystery series, MURDER ON NOB HILL, was nominated as most popular book of the year by the Salt Lake City Library Society. The second book in the Sarah Woolson series, THE RUSSIAN HILL MURDERS, received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly.