Rachel Barrowman is an award-winning historian. Her publications include, The Turnbull: a library and its world (1995), and Mason: the life of R.A.K. Mason (2003), which won the biography category of the 2004 Montana New Zealand Book Awards. This biography also received a wealth of critical praise, and Kim Worthington described it as, ‘a superbly crafted biography’. Rachel Barrowman has worked as an editor for the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, and has been awarded key research fellowships.