About

Gail Cornwall's award-winning writing covers education, parenting, psychology, and a smattering of other issues impacting current and former children. Most pieces take the reported form these days, though she has written essays in the past.

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Her qualifications are cobbled together from a series of roles, including stay-at-home mother, higher education lawyer (Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge, LLP), ninth-grade English teacher (Crossland High School), federal law clerk (U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit), special education intern (Stanford’s Youth & Education Law Project), research assistant, teacher’s assistant, elementary and secondary education intern (U.S. Department of Education), and history major (University of California, Berkeley).

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Born in St. Louis and raised in the Bay Area, she’s a serial monogamist of urban living who resided in New York City, Washington D.C., Boston, and Seattle before committing to San Francisco, which helps explain why three states admitted her to practice law.

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Gail’s work has been published online by the Atlantic, Guardian, Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today, Salon, and U.S. News & World Report, among others – as well as in print by national glossies (including the Nation, Good Housekeeping, and Real Simple) and newspapers (the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, and more).

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She was named a finalist for the Education Writers Association's 2023 Eddie Prize, and for 2022 won that organization's award for feature writing. Gail also won a 2022 John Swett Award for Media Excellence, given by the California Teachers Association.   

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