About

Gail Cornwall's award-winning writing covers education, parenting, psychology, and a smattering of other issues impacting current and former children. 

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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, and Salon,, among others – as well as in print by national glossies (including the New York, the Nation, Good Housekeeping, and Real Simple) and newspapers (the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, and more).

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She won the Education Writer's Association's 2024 award for  investigative & public service reporting as a member of the Hechinger Report's all-star team, was named a finalist for EWA's 2023 Eddie Prize, and won that organization's award for feature writing in 2022. Gail also won a 2022 John Swett Award for Media Excellence, given by the California Teachers Association, and got second place for  inclusion & representation in features for The Society for Features Journalism in 2024 as well as for The San Francisco Press Club's 2024 award for feature story, serious subject.​

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