Born on July 27, 1973 in Tehran, Iran, Cassandra Clare is an American-Iranian-American novelist and teenage fiction writer. She is best known for authoring the Mortal Instruments fantasy series from 2007 until the final installments were released in 2014. Claire was born Judith Rumelt to American-born parents in Tehran, Iran. Her parents are Elizabeth and Richard Romelt. They served as professors at the Academy of Business Administration and as a writer, respectively. Clare's maternal grandfather was film producer Max Rosenberg. Claire is Jewish, but she describes her family as non-religious. As a child, Clare traveled frequently, spending time in Switzerland, England and France. She returned to Los Angeles in high school, and has since divided her time between California and New York City, working for various entertainment magazines and tabloids, including The Hollywood Reporter. While living in Los Angeles, Claire embarked on writing fiction, using the name Cassandra Claire. The Drico Trilogy, inspired by Harry Potter and The Top Secret Diary, inspired by The Lord of the Rings, have become popular novels. Despite this, Claire deleted her fantasy novels from the Internet before publishing her first novel, City of Bones, under the name Cassandra Claire. Claire currently lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, with her husband, Joshua Lewis, and three cats.