JESSICA FRANCIS KANE grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and graduated from Yale University. Her first short story collection, Bending Heaven, was published in the US (Counterpoint, 2002) and the UK (Chatto & Windus, 2003). Her first novel, The Report, was published by Graywolf Press (2010) and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the Indie Booksellers’ Choice Award, and the Grub Street Book Prize for Fiction. It was also a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. The Report was published in the UK by Granta Books and was chosen as a Best Reads 2012 for the Channel 4 TV Book Club. A play by Martin Casella based on the novel premiered at the 2016 New York International Fringe Festival.

Kane’s second story collection, This Close (Graywolf Press and Granta Books, 2013), was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and The Story Prize. It was named a best book of the year by NPR.

Kane’s stories have been presented on BBC Radio 4, chosen for New York City’s MTA Subway Reads program, and honored as notable in the Best American Non-Required Reading and The Pushcart Prize anthologies. Her fiction has appeared in many publications, including Granta, McSweeney’s, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Yale Review and A Public Space. She has written essays for The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, and Slate among others.

Kane’s second novel, Rules for Visiting, was published in May 2019 by Penguin Press (US) and Granta Books (UK) and was a national and LA Times bestseller. It was selected for the Indie Next List of the American Booksellers Association and was named a best book of the summer and/or year by Oprah Magazine, Good Housekeeping, The Wall Street Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle, Vulture and The Chicago Tribune. It was shortlisted for the 2020 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize.

Kane has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and currently lives in New York City with her husband and two children.