[1][2] Born Melinda Jacobson in Chicago, Illinois, at 15 she was adopted by her stepfather and changed her name to Linda Yellin.
Yellin was a copywriter and creative director in the advertising industry, working for such companies as Needham, Harper & Stears (now DDB), J. Walter Thompson (now JWT), Foote, Cone and Belding (now DraftFCB) and Ogilvy and Mather (now Ogilvy) and Young and Rubicam (now Y&R.
[6][7] Yellin met her first husband, Rick Cadwell, a former member of the United States Marine Corps and Vietnam War veteran, while an undergraduate at the University of Illinois.
Yellin's first novel, Such a Lovely Couple, was based on their relationship and Cadwell's death from a brain tumor.
[4][8] In 1996 Yellin married financial adviser Randy Arthur and moved to New York.