Zara Raab is a freelance writer and poet. Her most recent book is The Book of Gretel. Her book Swimming the Eel came out in September of 2011. Her poems, reviews, and essays appear in West Branch, Arts & Letters, Nimrod, The Dark Horse, River Styx, Redwood Coast Review, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. She attended Mills College and the University of Michigan. She grew up in rural northern California, where her parents both attended one-room schools and her father did not graduate from grade school. She lives in Berkeley, California.