Cassandra Clare is the author of The Mortal Instruments Series and the Infernal Devices series. She was born to American parents Elizabeth and Richard Rumelt in Teheran,Iran. Her father is a business school professor and an author. Her maternal grandfather was film producer Max Rosenberg. She spent much of her childhood traveling the world with her family, including one trek through the Himalayas as a toddler where she spent a month living in her father's backpack. She lived in France, England, and Switzerland before she was ten years old.After college, Cassie lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids where she reported on Hollywood stars. She started working on her Young Adult novel City of Bones in 2004, inspired by her favorite city, Manhattan.