Mallory Hellman grew up Jewish and queer in the American South. The granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, she learned Anne Frank's story early and engaged with Anne's diary at several points in her education. Mallory's maternal grandparents, Max and Felicia Fuksman, dedicated their lives to education and spoke to students around the country about their time in the camps; Max was interned at Bergen Belsen at the same time as Anne Frank. Proudly, Mallory has followed in the pedagogical footsteps of her grandparents. After graduating from Harvard in 2008, she pursued an MFA at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has since served as the director of the Iowa Youth Writing Project, providing literacy education and enrichment to marginalized K-12 youth.