Rainbow Rowell

About Rainbow Rowell

Rainbow Rowell was born on February 24, 1973, and grew up in Nebraska. She attended the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and went on to work for the Omaha World-Herald, Nebraska's major daily newspaper, for nearly two decades—serving as a columnist, feature writer, and advertising copywriter. Her journalism career gave her an ear for vernacular dialogue and an affinity for the rhythms of ordinary American life, both of which are hallmarks of her fiction. She began writing novels while still employed at the paper. Her debut, Attachments (2011), was an adult romantic comedy set in a 1999 newspaper office. She published her breakthrough young adult novel, Eleanor & Park, in 2013, followed by Fangirl the same year.

Rowell's work spans the adult/YA divide with unusual ease. Her YA novels—Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Carry On (2015), Wayward Son (2019), and Any Way the Wind Blows (2021)—are known for sharp dialogue, deeply felt emotional interiority, and heroes who are outsiders by choice or circumstance. Carry On grew from within Fangirl, in which the protagonist writes fan fiction about a Harry Potter–like character called Simon Snow; Rowell later wrote Simon Snow as his own novel series. She has also written the adult novels Landline (2014) and Beth & Amy (2024) and contributed to Marvel Comics with extended runs on Runaways and She-Hulk.

Her Most Challenged Works

Eleanor & Park, a 1986-set love story between a mixed-race Korean-American boy and a plus-sized girl from an abusive home, has been challenged most frequently. Objections typically cite its profanity, racial slurs used in period-accurate dialogue, and sexual content. The book received a Michael L. Printz Honor from the American Library Association in 2014. Several challenges have also cited the book's depiction of an abusive household and its frank treatment of teenage sexuality as inappropriate for school settings. Rowell has been outspoken in responding to bans, noting that the book's willingness to name the hardships of adolescent life—poverty, racism, domestic violence, first love—is exactly why it connects with readers who have lived through similar experiences.

Recognition

Eleanor & Park won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Fiction and Poetry in 2013 and earned a Michael L. Printz Honor in 2014. Fangirl won a 2014 Alex Award, given to books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults. Several of her titles have appeared on the New York Times bestseller list, and her fan fiction–adjacent Carry On universe has inspired an active fandom of its own.