Shelley Emling has been a journalist for 20 years. She was born in Missouri. Later she grew up in Dallas, Texas. She went to the University of Texas and started her journalism career at UPI.

Shelley is the author of two books: Your Guide to Retiring in Mexico, and most recently, The Fossil Hunter, published by Macmillan in 2009 about paleontologist Mary Anning, whom Shelley had learned of while on a holiday in England.[1] The Fossil Hunter was criticised by the New York Times for having moved away from the central narrative too often, but the reviewer nevertheless noted the ample footnotes, which put the subject's work "into the scientific and sociological context".[2] Nature, however, felt that Emling's "diligent" work was "more thorough and complete" than Tracy Chevalier's fictional account of Anning's life, Remarkable Creatures, which was released the same year – although the reviewer notes that the freedom of the fictionalised account proved to be more engaging.[3]