​Rachel Jane Young was born in Fayetteville, Arkansas on June 11, 1974. Her parents were Bobbie Ann Walker and Henry Young Junior. Her mother left her father in October 1974, and moved back to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Rachel graduated from Fayetteville High School in June of 1992. She stayed in Fayetteville, instead of leaving Arkansas for college, and attended the University of Arkansas (that’s where she was reunited with Miller Hoffman). She spent the summer of 1995 in New York City, where she was a summer intern at Black Springs Press. She acted as an assistant to Bobbie Lamont, Junior Editor and while she was there, her relationship with her father improved, becoming closer. She also started researching her grandfather, Henry Young Senior. She graduated the following year, in 1996 and her debut book was published the following year, in 1997. She met her literary role model/hero, Neva Reinhart, at her book launch party (thanks to her editor, Natalie Adams). Rachel and Neva became friends, with Neva becoming Rachel’s guide and mentor. She encouraged Rachel to write a biography of her (Neva’s) mother, Lisbeth Reinhart. Five years later, Neva died, and Rachel’s biography of Lisbeth Reinhart, In the Spotlight, was published to great reviews. It was also a best-seller. Rachel also married Mason Stern, a classmate from the University of Arkansas. Three years later, their daughter, Grace Jane, was born. That same year, Rachel’s biography (her second one) about the professor turned author, Heinrich Zimmerman (Zimmerman), was published. Three years later, in 2008, Rachel’s fourth book, a biography of Neva Reinhart (Spitfire), was published, and her husband, Mason, was killed in a car accident. Rachel’s fifth book, a biography of her grandmother, Rachel J. Bell (Hard Knocked Life) was published four years later in 2012. Rachel’s sixth book, a biography of Richard Jeremiah Mathews (His Father’s Son), was published in 2015. She is the third member of the Fourth Wave of authors and lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.