Janet McCue is a writer, researcher, avid hiker, and award winning author. She collaborated with the late George Ellison on Back of Beyond: A Horace Kephart Biography, which won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award shortly after its release in 2019, along with several other publications including the biographical chapter in Horace Kephart: Writings (2020). Her newest book, George Masa: A Life Reimagined, was a collaboration with co-author Paul Bonesteel, and came out in 2024.

In the 1970s, McCue and her husband began exploring the Great Smoky Mountains on extended backpacking trips; her interest continues today through her work on George Masa, Kephart, and the Smokies Life board of directors. For three decades, McCue was a librarian at Cornell University where she specialized in library administration and digital library development. She lives in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, writing regularly about the beauty and bounty of the area.