Adam Gidwitz was born in San Francisco, California in 1982. He received a bachelor's degree in English literature from Columbia University. After graduating, he took a job in a second grade classroom at Saint Ann's School, in Brooklyn and attended Bank Street College of Education in the evenings. He eventually taught first, second, fifth, and high school at Saint Ann's before deciding to become a full-time author. He is the author of A Tale Dark and Grimm and In a Glass Grimly.