Meet the author

Rachel Renée Russell.

Writer & illustrator · United States · b. 1959

Rachel Renée Russell: creator of Dork Diaries, the doodled middle-school diary series that's become a near-universal 9–12 staple — funny, warm, and quietly cheering on the imperfect kid at the back of the class.

Rachel Renée Russell is an American author-illustrator born in 1959, best known as the creator of Dork Diaries, the doodle-packed diary series narrated by self-declared dork Nikki Maxwell as she survives the snobbery, crushes and mean-girl politics of Westchester Country Day middle school. A former lawyer who developed the series with her daughters, Russell writes each book in Nikki's exclamation-heavy handwriting, cartoons and lists, threading warm friendship and self-acceptance through the slapstick. Across sixteen main-series titles the formula stays reliably funny and inclusive, quietly reassuring readers that their gloriously imperfect selves are more than enough. A near-universal staple for 9–12s, and one of the great reluctant-reader pipelines for children who love Diary of a Wimpy Kid and want a girl-led equivalent.