Hopefuls (Close)

Author Bio
• Birth—1979
• Where—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Boston College; M.F.A., The New School
• Currently—lives in Washington, DC


Jennifer Close is the American author of four novels, including her well known 2011 debut, Girls in White Dresses.

Close was raised in Chicago, Illinois, and attended Boston College. After earning her B.A., she headed to New York to get her M.F.A. at The New School where, according to an interview in the Washington Post, she wrote in a male voice to "avoid being too revelatory."

After an internship at The New Yorker, she spent another year at Vogue, then landed a job with a startup magazine called Portfolio. She rose to become the assistant managing editor before the magazine closed in 2009. It was at Portfolio, while waiting for proofs to be delivered late at night, that she began typing stories about her life and the lives of her friends who found themselves on an endless cycle of weddings, showers, and bachelorette parties—events which left them exhausted and broke. Those stories eventually became the 2011 novel, Girls in White Dresses.

When her boyfriend and now husband, Tim Hartz, joined the Obama White House, Close moved to D.C. to be with him. That life has also proven a rich lode to mine—this time for her fourth book, The Hopefuls.

Novels
2011 - Girls in White Dresses
2013 - The Smart One
2013 - The Things We Need
2016 - The Hopefuls