Ellen Marie Francisco was born and raised in Toronto. An early career in film development and production led her to Hollywood where she spent decades on a NAFTA-induced Investor Visa running her catering business "Amazing Graze" and her real estate support business "Cabin Ready". She has worked behind the scenes as a photographer for Cirque du Soleil, as a fan mail response writer and proof-reader for Sidney Sheldon, and as a copywriter for Knightsbridge Publishing, a bi-coastal mass market publishing company. 

Her first short story Depart Baltimore won a Writer's Digest Honorable Mention in the Mainstream/Literary Short Story category. Good Girl's Guide to County Jail for the Bad Girl in Us All is a finalist for the 2018 American Book Awards in the LAW category.

Her art has been published internationally, and shown in galleries in Los Angeles, Hawaii, and Ottawa. Her newest artwork is featured in Good Girl's Guide to County Jail for the Bad Girl in Us All: Your Guide to the Incarcer Nation published by FriesenPress in October, 2017.

She is working on the completion of her non-fiction narrative "I Stand Corrected".

She lives in Ontario with her two children and a Chihuahua named Piglet.