Rachel Pollack is a poet, an award-winning novelist, an authority on the modern interpretation of Tarot cards, and a Tarot card artist.

Her novel Godmother Night (St. Martin's, 1997) won the 1997 World Fantasy Award and was described by Kirkus Reviews "a magical exploration of the deepest roots of life and death." Her earlier novel, Unquenchable Fire (Century, 1988), won Britain's Arthur C. Clarke Award, and was described by The New York Review of Science Fiction as "not only the best fantasy of the year, possibly the best of the decade, and the best feminist novel of the decade." And her novel Temporary Agency (St. Martin's, 1994) was nominated for the Nebula Award, the James T. Tiptree Award, and the Mythopoeic Award.

She has published thirteen books on Tarot, including 78 Degrees of Wisdom, considered a modern classic and "the Bible of Tarot reading." She also has written on other non-fiction subjects, including The Body of The Goddess, which traces the origin and development of religion in the human body and nature. Her Shining Tribe Tarot, designed and drawn by Rachel herself, draws on tribal and prehistoric images from six continents and 50,000 years. She has had several shows of her artwork, both Tarot and other images. Her books have been published in nine languages. Rachel grew up in Poughkeepsie, the setting for Unquenchable Fire. After nineteen years living in Europe, she returned, in 1990, to live in the Hudson Valley.