Rachel Ekstrom Courage is the author of the Young Adult thriller Nothing Bad Happens Here (PRH/Delacorte, April 2025) and a forthcoming novel for adults. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband (the children’s book author Nick Courage) and their dog, Chaely.

By day she’s the founder of Courage Literary, advocating for books and authors that make the world a better, smarter, and more interesting place. As a literary agent, Rachel has represented New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Amazon Best Sellers. Her clients include GoodReads Choice Award Winners, IndieNext Picks and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections as well as finalists for the Lambda Award, the National Jewish Book Award, and the ITW Thriller Award.

Rachel has led workshops, keynoted, and appeared on panels at Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop, The Loft’s Wordsmith Conference, Grub Street, SCBWI’s Winter Conference, Thrillerfest, Writer’s Digest, Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, University of Pittsburgh, Chatham University, Seton Hill University, LWC}NYC, Jambalaya Writers Conference, South Carolina Writers’ Workshop, New England Crime Bake, PNWA, RWA, New York Writers Workshop, Unicorn Writers Conference, Digital Hollywood, PennWriters and more. She’s also the co-founder of Littsburgh, a community celebrating the literature of Western Pennsylvania, and occasionally appears on CBS Pittsburgh to talk about books and literary events.

Her publishing career began in New York City where Rachel started out as a bookseller before becoming a book publicist, promoting mysteries and thrillers for Minotaur in the historic Flatiron building. She next took on a directorial role for Penguin’s Dutton and Gotham imprints and finally worked on blockbuster fiction and nonfiction for St. Martin’s Press (highlights of which included throwing publishing parties at Bouchercon and watching a live Oprah taping from the green room). Along the way, she enjoyed stints as a fifth-grade teacher and as a bookseller at a children’s bookstore inside FAO Schwartz.

When she’s not busy working on books, you can find Rachel playing with her dog and restocking her Little Free Library.