Born in Southern California in 1927, BETTY FUSSELL grew up in Riverside but lived for most of her life in the New York area. Best known for The Story of Corn, she is the author of twelve nonfiction books, ranging from biography to cookbooks, food history, and memoir. Her essays on food, travel, and the arts have appeared in scholarly journals, national magazines, and newspapers, including The New York Times, over the past fifty years. A specialist in Shakespeare, she has taught English and American literature and the history of food and its importance to American culture at colleges and universities across the country. She has lectured to audiences everywhere from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to Iowa's State Fair.

Her many awards include the IACP's Jane Grigson Award, Food Arts's Silver Spoon Award, the James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award, and the Who's Who of Food & Beverage.

Her memoir, My Kitchen Wars, was performed in Hollywood and New York as a one-woman show by actress Dorothy Lyman. Her most recent book is Eat, Live, Love, Die: Selected Essays, published in 2016 by Counterpoint Press. She moved back to California to live at Casa Dorinda in Montecito in 2012.