Jessamine Chan

Jessamine Chan is an American novelist raised in Oak Park, Illinois, by Chinese-immigrant academic parents. She holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from Columbia, and worked as a nonfiction book reviews editor at Publishers Weekly and later edited a research digest at the University of Chicago's business school. Her debut novel, The School for Good Mothers (2022), grew out of a New Yorker article about a mother who lost custody of her child; Chan spent three years living in Philadelphia while researching and writing it. The book became a Today Show "Read with Jenna" pick and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize for a first book. Television rights were acquired by Jessica Chastain's Freckle Films, with Chan serving as an executive producer. She lives in Chicago with her family.