Nancy Farmer (born 1941) is a prominent children's book author from the United States.
Farmer was born in Phoenix, Arizona. She earned her B.A. at Reed College (1963) and later studied chemistry and entomology at the University of California, Berkeley. She enlisted in the Peace Corps (1963—1965), and subsequently worked in Mozambique and Zimbabwe (where she studied biological methods of controlling the tsetse fly- 1975—1978). She met her future husband, Harold Farmer, at the university in Harare. After a week-long courtship, the two were married. Farmer currently lives in the Chiricahua Mountains of Arizona with her husband; they have one son, Daniel.