Marie Lisette Rimer grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and gravitated to the New England countryside for a BA and MA in Secondary Education at the University of Connecticut. She was a publicist in the Connecticut legislature and an award-winning English teacher at Rectory School in Pomfret, Connecticut. She started the school newspaper and coaxed middle-school reporters to be specific and concise in their news stories.

The joy of three children and country living with her husband, Robert Wood, were shattered with the suicide death of her youngest son, Patrick Wood. She went from teacher to student to learn why—at first through Patrick’s life and then through the ravages of depression and her mother’s similar death. She searched through Pat’s therapy, gay life, friends, German books, and music. Resolution came from learning the danger of depression and the peace of knowing Patrick’s story would be told in Back From Suicide.