Sarah Burns was born in Walpole, NH. She graduated from Yale University in 2004 with a degree in American Studies and went on to work for a small civil rights law firm called Moore & Goodman. There she did paralegal work and research on such varied cases as VAVA et al. v. Dow
Chemical et al., a class action in which Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange sued the companies who produced that chemical, and U.S. v. al-Moayad, the criminal trial of a Yemeni sheik accused of funding terrorism.

She is currently writing a non-fiction book for Pantheon about the Central Park Jogger Rape, which will soon become a documentary film for Florentine Films. Sarah will serve as one of the producers of that project.