Rachel Neumeier began writing fiction to relax (and, honestly, to avoid doing statistical analyses she ought to have been working on). The statistics worked out, but the fiction turned out to be a much stronger focus in her life than she expected. Her debut novel, a YA fantasy called The City in the Lake, came out from Knopf Books for Young Readers in 2008. Following her first ten traditionally published novels, Rachel moved into self-publishing in 2020. She now has close to forty titles on the shelf, and ideas for roughly forty more.