Heather Abel was raised in San­ta Mon­i­ca, Cal­i­for­nia. She attend­ed Swarth­more Col­lege and sub­se­quent­ly worked as a reporter and edi­tor for polit­i­cal news­pa­pers. Her essays have been pub­lished in the New York Times, the Los Ange­les Times, Slate, and else­where. She received her MFA in fic­tion from the New School, where she lat­er taught cre­ative non­fic­tion writ­ing. She lives in Northamp­ton, Mass­a­chu­setts, with her hus­band and two daughters.