Chanel Polk is a Chicago-based writer and editor. She coaches self-published authors to help them clarify their messages, organize their ideas, and get their manuscripts ready for publishing and does comprehensive developmental editing. She also helps individuals, businesses, and nonprofit organizations enhance their online presence with targeted search-engine-optimized blog posts, webpage content, opt-ins, and other types of written content and materials.

Chanel Polk writes about parenting children with autism and learning differences for Understood and The Mighty, a website about disability, disease, and mental illness with a readership of 150 million. Her articles on politics, the community, and social justice have appeared in print in The Chicago Reporter and Streetwise.

Chanel earned her B.A. in English Literature from Northeastern Illinois University and is a recipient of the Peter Lisagor Award for Reporting from the Chicago Headline Club, the Chicago chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.