MICKEY RATHBUN grew up in Washington, D.C. and Middleburg, VA. She received her B.S. in Urban Planning from the University of Virginia School of Architecture and her J.D. from the UVA School of Law. She practiced law in New York City in the 1980s before moving to Western Massachusetts in 1989 and turning her attention to her true passion, writing. Her hundreds of features and personal essays on subjects ranging from legal controversies (including recovered memory syndrome and university sexual codes of conduct) to beekeeping and horseracing have appeared in many publications including the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, and Salon.com. For the past six years, she has been the garden columnist for the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Massachusetts. In 2002, she published Double Doglegs and Other Hazards, a biography of the visionary golf-course architect  Lawrence Packard.

Horses and dogs have always been central in Mickey’s life, leading some people to remark that she prefers animals to people. With her horse-of-a-lifetime, Bramble, she has competed successfully for many years in the sport of three-day eventing. She lives in Amherst with her husband, writer Christopher Benfey, and their rescue mutt, Luisa.