She has a younger sister, Kate, who works at MIT and Bill, her older brother, is a videographer. Searle received a B.A. from Oberlin College and her Master's degree from Brown University. She was a special education teacher and taught students with autism in schools located in New Haven, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island. In 1982, Searle's short story, "Missing LaDonna", appeared in Redbook. This was followed by stories placed in the South Carolina Review, the Indiana Review, The Greensboro Review, the Kenyon Review, Ploughshares and other journals. In 1993 her first book, "My Body To You", was published. In 1992, it had been named winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award by the Iowa Writers Workshop. James Salter, a novelist and screenwriter, who wrote The Hunters, Downhill Racer, The Appointment and others, acted as judge. "A Four Sided Bed", Searle's first novel, was published by Graywolf Press in 1998 and received positive reviews from Kirkus Reviews and Booklist. A novella and collection of short stories entitled "Celebrities in Disgrace" was published in 2001. It was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize. When discussing one of the themes of this collection during an interview with Post Road Magazine, Searle said, "I had a phrase in my mind, 'the witch of ambition,' and I do think there is this sort of dark force inside of people and any of those dark forces are hard to write about but they're the ones you want to write about..." Ambition and the search for attention seem to be the "...driving forces of our time." "Celebrities in Disgrace," the title novella, was called a 'miniature masterpiece' by New York Times Book Review. Celebrities in Disgrace was produced as a short film in 2010 by Bravo Sierra Pictures, with a script co-written by Elizabeth Searle. The film premiered as an official selection at Woods Hole International Film Festival on Cape Cod and has screened at other festivals throughout the country. Searle's novel A Four-Sided Bed is being developed as a feature film. "Tonya and Nancy:The Opera" previewed at the Zero Arrow Theatre of the American Repertory Theatre in 2006, produced by Tufts Music. It was selected by Opera Vista as one of the three best new one-act operas of the year in 2007. In 2010, it was performed by Mixed Precipitation in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Mixed Precipitation produced subsequent productions in February 2014 and in 2018.