Kelly Shire is a writer and third-generation native of Southern California (at least on her mother's side). Educated in public schools from the Central Valley to Orange County and places in between, she attended Rio Hondo Community College and Ole Miss before completing her English degree at California State University, Fullerton. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Cal State Long Beach, where she won both the Distinguished Graduate Student award and a humor contest for Best Worst Writing.

In 2015, based on her winning craft essay "Watching the Clock", she was awarded a scholarship to attend the HippoCamp writing conference in Lancaster, PA. She has also attended conferences sponsored by the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and Tin House. She is an active member of both the L.A. and El Cajon chapters of the national women's writing advocacy group Women Who Submit.

She is currently teaching her introductory writing class "Tell Your Story" for the community extension program of Mt. San Jacinto College, and has previously taught writing at CSU Long Beach and Chapman University. She also works as an assistant librarian in a public elementary school.

Kelly lives in Temecula, California with her husband and two children, and is seeking representation for her work-in-progress, a memoir.