Rachael Hanel is a writer, university instructor, and former journalist. She is the author of more than twenty nonfiction books for children, and her honors include two Junior Library Guild premier selections and two Minnesota Book Award nominations. Her essays have been published in the Bellingham Review, and two of her essays were selected as cowinners of the New Delta Review creative nonfiction contest in 2011, one of those was named a notable essay in the 2012 edition of The Best American Essays.