Jennifer Close is the best-selling author of Girls in White Dresses and The Smart One. Born and raised on the North Shore of Chicago, she is a graduate of Boston College and received her MFA in fiction writing from The New School in 2005. She worked in New York in magazines for many years. She now lives in Washington, DC, and teaches creative writing at George Washington University. Her latest novel, The Hopefuls (Knopf) tells the story of a young wife who follows her husband and his political dreams to Washington, D.C., a city of idealism, gossip, and complicated friendships among the young aspiring elite. In its starred review, Booklist writes, “Close lays the sacrifices and successes of a marriage bear with razor-sharp prose and keen wit.”
