Eleanor Liu was born in Alabama but grew up in Tennessee. She is a graduate of David Liipscomb College in Nashville, Tennessee, and of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. She has been an elementary teacher in Indiana and Taiwan. She taught university students in Changsha and Beijing, China. She has been active in teachers' organizations and several international groups. Her articles for teachers' magazines, for Metropolis Magazine in Beijing, China, and a book, Off the Beaten Path in Beijing, have been published. She volunteers and teaches Tai Chi Chuan at the YWCA in Topeka, Kansas. In Beijing, she leads a group-Tuesday Trotters-on visits to historical sites and is a member of the Beijing International Society. She and her husband have two children, six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. They divide their time between Topeka, Kansas, where their daughter and her husband are optometrists, and Beijing, China, where their son is director of the Environmental Education Media Project for China. His wife also works with him.