Dawn Raf­fel is a jour­nal­ist, mem­oirist, and short-sto­ry writer whose work has been wide­ly anthol­o­gized. A long­time mag­a­zine edi­tor, she helped launch O, The Oprah Mag­a­zine. She has also taught cre­ative writ­ing in the MFA pro­gram at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty; at sum­mer lit­er­ary sem­i­nars in St. Peters­burg, Rus­sia; Mon­tre­al; and Vil­nius, Lithua­nia; and at the Cen­ter for Fic­tion in New York. She now works as an inde­pen­dent edi­tor and book reviewer.