Debra Lynn Dean (born 1957)[1] is an American writer, best known for her 2006 novel, The Madonnas of Leningrad.

Dean was born and brought up in Seattle and studied English and Drama at Whitman College, graduating in 1980.

[2] She then trained as an actress in New York City,[3] where she married another actor, and worked mostly in theatre until returning to the Pacific Northwest to study for a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Oregon.

She now teaches creative writing at the Florida International University, where she is an associate professor of English.

[4][5]