Born in Tanzania, raised in the Caribbean, and educated in Michigan, Rehema Clarken received her Bachelor’s in International Studies and Master’s in English from Northern Michigan University and earned a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Michigan Technological University in 2017. While working abroad, she taught high school students in AP, A Level, and IB schools and served as academic principal for Beijing Foreign Studies University’s International Curriculum Center from 2018 to 2021. In 2021, she returned to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and opened the Keweenaw Learning Center, now Story Spring, in Hancock. In 2024, she published her first young adult fantasy novel, Pyrrha’s Journey. In 2026, A Hundred Thousand Hopes, a collaborative project with 27 authors, will be published.