Rachel Renee Russell

Rachel Renee Russell is the author of the Dork Diaries series, based on her own experiences in middle school as well as partially those of her two daughters Erin and Nikki, who help out writing the books as well as illustrating them, with Erin helping with the writing and Nikki, the younger daughter, helping with the illustrations. She grew up in Saint Joseph, Michigan, the oldest child of five children. Saint Joseph is a relatively small city situated on the shore of Lake Michigan. She has siblings, two younger sisters and two younger brothers that are twins. She wrote the first dork diaries book when she was in the sixth grade as a present to her twin brothers Donney and Ronney on their birthday. She continued writing the books when she was going to go school to become an attorney. She wrote the books while studying and working towards her degree in law and eventually graduated and began working as an attorney in the real world.