She started her literary work by finishing the manuscript for her father's Z for Zachariah in 1974 after his death.

[1] Her first own book, Racso and the Rats of NIMH, was published in 1986, and is a sequel to her father's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

Conly graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1966 and from Smith College in 1971.

Conly lives in Baltimore, Maryland with her family: Peter, her husband; Eliza, her daughter; and Will, her son.

This article about a children's author from the United States is a stub.