ABOUT A.E. ROOKS

A.E. Rooks hopes to always be a student of history, which hasn’t stopped her from studying everything else. Rooks’ international award-winning debut, The Black Joke: The True Story of One Ship's Battle Against the Slave Trade, explores a little discussed facet of the transatlantic slave trade and received the Maritime Foundation Award for Best Book in 2022. Previous writing credits include Between the Briefs, a sex column with a legal lens, for which she won two national awards for sex positive journalism.

A two-time Jeopardy! champion whose schooling spans theatre, law, library and information science, education, human sexuality, Rooks' literary passions are united by what the past can teach us about the present, how history shapes our future, and above all, really interesting stories.