Naomi Novik was born in New York in 1973, a first-generation American, and raised on Polish fairy tales, Baba Yaga, and Tolkien. She studied English Literature at Brown University and Computer Science at Columbia University before leaving to work in the games industry. She soon realized she preferred the writing to the programming, and decided to try her hand at novels. was her first.Naomi lives in New York City with her husband and six computers.