Rev. Lynn Casteel Harper is a minister, chaplain, and essayist.  She is the author of On Vanishing: Mortality, Dementia, and What It Means to Disappear (2020), a 2021 CLSC Selection and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Lynn’s work has appeared in Kenyon Review Online, Salon, The Paris Review, North American Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and elsewhere. She currently serves as the Minister of Older Adults at The Riverside Church in the City of New York.

Rev. Lynn Casteel Harper is a Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grant recipient and the winner of the 2017 Orison Anthology Award in Nonfiction. 

An ordained Baptist minister, Lynn completed her M.Div. at Wake Forest University and her chaplaincy residency at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital.  Before joining Riverside’s staff, Lynn was a nursing home chaplain at a continuing care retirement community, where her passion for dementia and aging justice began.  Originally from southeastern Missouri, she lives in New York City with her spouse Ryan Harper.