Charlsie Russell is the oldest child of a Mississippi father and an Arkansan mother. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1972 with a degree in archaeology, she entered the Navy's Officer Candidate School from where she emerged an ensign. She retired in 1993 as a full commander in Naval Intelligenge, and returned with her family to her home state of Mississippi. After the last of her five children entered kindergarten she indulged her loves of reading, history,and the South, delving into the world of writing.
After seven years of rejection, she woke up one morning and decided she did not have enough years left on this planet to sit back and hope a New York publisher would one day take a risk on her novels. Thus resolved, she expanded her horizons into the publishing realm with the creation of Loblolly Writer's House. She focuses her writing on historical suspense set in Mississippi.