Background

Shirley Tallman was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. Her family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when she was a teenager.

Education

Shirley Tallman attended junior high and high school in the San Francisco Bay Area. Later, she studied at San Jose State University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Radio and Television.

Career

At the begging of her career, Shirley Tallman worked as Traffic Manager, scriptwriter, and director for KNTV in San Jose, a local ABC affiliate station. She also taught guitar and played and sang with a rock group.

For a little while, Tallman worked as a flight attendant, flying to South Pacific and the Orient. During that period, she filled entire notebooks with ideas. Soon after that, she landed a syndicated newspaper column in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Tallman’s romances were most written under the pseudonym Erin Ross. Her first novel, Please Stand By, Your Mother's Missing, was written with Nancy Hersage in 1980. Together, they have sold many television scripts to the likes of ABC and NBC. Their movie, The Babysitter’s Seduction, originally aired on NBC and continues to play regularly on the Lifetime Channel. Their project, The War Machine, was bought for Tom Cruise by Paramount Studios, and their story Lili is being produced for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation.

Among Shirley Tallman’s Sarah Woolson Mysteries series is Murder on Nob Hil that was published in 2004, The Russian Hill Murders in 2005, The Cliff House Strangler in 2007 and most recent novel, Death on Telegraph Hill came out in 2012. Presently, Shirley and her husband, Bob divide their time between Eugene, Oregon and Incline Village, Nevada.

Achievements

• Shirley Tallman is particularly known as the author of a great number of books on the historical mystery. She won several awards, placed №5 on Waldenbooks’ national bestseller list, and was nominated as "Best Desire of the Year" by Romantic Times.

Works

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• book

  • Fragrant Harbor

    (When Carole Reeves went to exotic Hong Kong to research h...)

    1984
  • The Russian Hill Murders

    (Though her own San Francisco law firm barely tolerates he...)

    2005
  • The Cliff House Strangler

    (Nineteenth-century attorney Sarah Woolson is still trying...)

    2007
  • Scandal on Rincon Hill

    (A body is found just blocks from attorney Sarah Woolson's...)

    2010
  • Murder On Nob Hill

    (The year is 1880, the place San Francisco. Intelligent, o...)

    2004
  • Death on Telegraph Hill

    (San Francisco, 1882. After enjoying an evening listening ...)

    2012
  • Time for Tomorrow

    (Ghost of Passion. After three years she'd finally come fa...)

    1983
  • Please Stand By, Your Mother's Missing 1980
  • Second Harvest 1982
  • Flower Of Orient 1983
  • Odds Against 1984
  • Roses For Remembering 1985
  • Willing Spirit 1986
  • Carnival Madness 1987

• movie

  • The Babysitter's Seduction 1996

Membership

Shirley Tallman has been a member of Novelists Inc., Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Historical Novel Society, Pacific Northwest Booksellers' Association, Willamette Valley Writers, and Oregon Writer's Colony.

Connections

Shirley's husband's name is Bob. They have children.