M. Elizabeth Gilbert (born on July 18, 1969) is an American novelist, essayist, story teller, writer, biographer and memoirist. Gilbert was born in Waterbury, Connecticut. Her father was a chemical engineer, her mother a nurse. Along with her only sister, novelist and historian Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Gilbert grew up on a small family Christmas tree farm in Litchfield, Connecticut. The family lived in the country with no neighbors, and they didn’t own a TV or even a record player. Consequently, they all read a great deal, and Gilbert and her sister entertained themselves by writing little books and plays.[1] She attended New York University and graduated in 1991 with a BA in Political Science, after which she lived the life of a literary vagabond – experiencing life as a cook, a waitress, and a magazine lackey – in order to write about it. Her experiences as a cook on a dude ranch found their way into both short stories and her book The Last American Man (Viking 2002).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Gilbert