Gayle Soucek is an author and freelance editor, with several books and numerous magazine articles to her credit, including Marshall Field's: The Store that Helped Build Chicago and Chicago Calamities: Disaster in the Windy City, both books published by The History Press. She once served as managing editor for the Chicago art and entertainment biweekly, Nightmoves. She and her photographer husband divide their time between their home in a Chicago suburb and their second home in Baileys Harbor. As a child, Gayle first discovered her latent acrophobia on a climb up Eagle Tower during a family vacation. She's pretty sure that the claw marks she left on the railings remain to this day.