Vaneesa Cook holds a doctorate in US history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2015). Her first book Spiritual Socialists: Religion and the American Left was published in fall 2019 by the University of Pennsylvania Press. She has also published articles in the LA Review of Books, Religion & Politics, Dissent, Sojourners, the Washington Post, Aeon, Raritan, and more. She lives in Wisconsin and works as a writer, a historian, and a freelance editor.