Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, including Silver Sparrow, The Untelling, Leaving Atlanta, and An American Marriage, which was an Oprah's Book Club Selection and winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize), Aspen Words Prize, and an NAACP Image Award, as well as appearing on Barack Obama's summer reading list and year-end roundup. She holds degrees from Spelman College, Arizona State University, and the University of Iowa. She is an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University.