Charmaine was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1965. In 1974, she and her 5 siblings immigrated to the United States to reunite with their parents, where the family resided in Vailsburg, NJ. They eventually moved to Orange, NJ where the lived until the children had all reached adulthood. Charmaine graduated from Rutgers University with a bachelor of arts in English Literature. She started her career as an editorial assistant at a publishing company, then moved into medical publishing. There she worked as a production editor on several prestigious medical journals. After 10 years in publishing, Charmaine moved into the promotional advertising industry, working as a medical editor. At her last full-time job, she served as the editorial director of the editorial group at her company. She currently works from home as a freelance editor, where she resides in Piscataway, NJ with the loves of her life, her classically named men, her husband Ulysses and her son Darius, and their dog Riley.