Leah Hager Cohen is an American author who writes both fiction and nonfiction. Cohen's father was superintendent of the Lexington School for the Deaf in Queens, New York, and she became fluent in sign language there. She entered NYU at age 16, intending to study drama, but later transferred to Hampshire College to study literature, graduating in 1988. After working as a sign language interpreter for two years, she entered Columbia Journalism School, graduating in 1991. Her first book grew out of her masters thesis, in which she reported on deaf culture. Cohen lives in Belmont, Massachusetts.