Sheyna Galyan grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area (technically Cupertino – also the birthplace of Apple Computers) and holds a degree in psychology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a counseling certificate from San Jose State University. She worked as a counselor for several years before moving to Minnesota, where she began writing on mental health topics and later worked as a journalist for Press Publications in the northeast Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Sheyna has also done graduate work in elementary education at the University of Minnesota and worked for five years as a part-time Jewish teacher in grades 1-7. She has learned both formally and informally with numerous rabbis around the country, and co-led both an online Jewish studies conference and a Jewish-Christian dialogue in real-time chat for two years.

The publication of her first novel, Destined to Choose, is the realization of a long-held dream. With the inspiration of an elementary school teacher, Sheyna began writing stories at the age of eight and never stopped. Destined to Choose and the beginning of the Rabbi David Cohen series integrate her three primary interests: Judaism, teaching, and writing.

Active in both her synagogue and community, Sheyna identifies herself as Traditional Conservative, with occasional leanings toward both Reform and Feminist Orthodoxy – sometimes simultaneously, which she says makes life interesting. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with her husband and two children, where she is at work on the next Rabbi David Cohen novel.