Woo is a New York Times best-selling author and historical researcher. Her first book was The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother’s Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times, which tells the story of Eunice Chapman, a woman whose children were taken from her by her estranged husband in 1814. Woo’s writing has been published in The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Time, and others. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities from Yale College and a PhD in English from Columbia University. Her 2023 work Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom has won numerous awards, including being named one of The New York Times’s “10 Best Books of 2023,” People’s “Top 10 Books of 2023,” and Time’s “The 100 Must-Read Books of 2023.”

In a 2023 interview with NPR, Woo explained that she hopes others find William and Ellen Craft’s story inspiring (Advani, Reena. “Ilyon Woo's New Book Explores the Relentless Pursuit of Freedom.” NPR, 24 Jan. 2023). Woo feels that she connects to their story because of her own educational experiences and the limited version of history she was provided as a child.