About Rachel Cohn

Rachel grew up near DC, and attended Barnard College, Manhattan at the age of 17. She graduated with a B.A. in Political Science, thinking she wanted to be a journalist. Instead, she moved to San Francisco - where Gingerbread was set - to work at a law firm and began writing. After moving back to New York City, Gingerbread was published followed by a number of other books, often about a strong, witty female protagonist. Rachel Cohn (born 14 December 1968 in Silver Spring, Maryland) is a young adult fiction author. Her first book, Gingerbread, was published in 2002. Since then she has gone on to write many other successful YA and children's books, and has collaborated on three books with the author David Levithan.
From the time I learned how to read and write I was always trying to create stories. I grew up surrounded by books and by family who were educators – the desire and encouragement to write came readily in my household. When I was a kid, I loved books by Judy Blume, Ellen Conford and E.L. Konigsburg. (I loved Judy Blume’s books so much that I used to actively wish I would get scoliosis so I could be like Deenie.) My favorite books were: Harriet the Spy;Deenie; And This Is Laura; Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; Anything for A Friend; From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler; and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. Oh, and anything by Jackie Collins or Sidney Sheldon.