As the daughter of an English professor, "I was obviously in a home where books and reading and writing mattered," Gardiner told the Santa Barbara Independent newspaper. At Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California, she reported for the Charger Account, the school paper, but her father urged caution to his budding writer. "He said I could write novels after college and be another novelist who waits on tables or I could become a lawyer who writes novels." She heeded his warning, but later left the law behind and began writing. "I decided I didn't want to argue for a living", she said. Instead, as the title of her blog "Lying for a Living" implies, she now lies for a living.
