Meet the Team

  • Koren

    Koren

    Koren brings the principles of memoir writing to the college essay process, producing authentic, memorable work that sticks in the reader’s mind long after it’s tucked away. She loves transforming self-conscious writers into self-aware ones by shining a light on their unique voices, personalities, hard-won insights, and boundless future potential.

    In addition to working with high schools students on their college essays, Koren is an internationally bestselling author, best known for her memoir Smashed, which helped change national policy on underage drinking and was hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “one of the best accounts of the college experience or even what it means to be a teenage girl in America.” Her novels include Mother, Mother, which won an ALA Alex Award for books that have a special appeal to young adults, and The Drama Teacher, which will soon be a major motion picture by 20th Century Fox.

    Koren holds a journalism degree from Syracuse University, where she was a protégé of PEN Award-winning memoirist Mary Karr. She also studied MFA fiction at Bennington College under Pulitzer Prize nominee David Gates. She has guest lectured at over forty-five American universities, including Harvard, Brown and Yale.