Margaret Blair Young was born in 1955 to Robert Blair and Julia Groberg Blair and has lived most of her life in Utah. She is married to Bruce Wilson Young, who is an English professor, and is the mother of four children. Young earned her B.A. at Brigham Young University (BYU) in theatre and cinematic arts in 1979. She later earned her M.A. at BYU in 1988 in creative writing. Young taught writing classes at Brigham Young University for over thirty years, retiring in 2018. She has written several articles and books, including "House Without Walls" (1991), "Salvador" (1992), and "Heresies of Nature" (2002). She has also helped write and produce films and documentaries including "Jane Manning James: Your Sister in the Gospel" (2005), which was shown at several film festivals and on PBS, and "Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons" (2008). Young specializes in African-American history in Utah and the American West and worked with Darius Gray on several projects about the stories of African-American Latter-day Saints. Her writing has received several awards. She was also a member of the Association for Mormon Letters. Young retired from teaching at BYU in 2018. Currently, her work focuses on reviving the film industry in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.