Jill Kolongowski is a nonfiction writer and professor living in Northern California. She is the author of a collection of essays called Life Lessons Harry Potter Taught Me (Ulysses Press, 2017). She received her MFA from Saint Mary’s College of California and is the managing editor at YesYes Books. Other writing is published in Sweet: A Literary Confection, Profane, Sundog Lit, and elsewhere. She is a Hufflepuff who grew up in Michigan and she's at work at an essay collection about disaster.