Briefly:

Anna Jarzab grew up entirely in the suburbs, first outside of Chicago and then in San Francisco’s East Bay area, where All Unquiet Things is set. She graduated from Santa Clara University, earned her Master’s degree from the University of Chicago, and currently lives in New York City. All Unquiet Things is her first novel.

Not so briefly:

Anna Jarzab was born three weeks late, a fact that underscores her lifelong devotion to procrastination. She was an adorable baby, let’s be honest; it was all downhill from there. She grew up in the north suburbs of Chicago, where she read a lot and did pretty okay in school, all things considered. After spending three years at a high school that was almost as large, population wise, as her undergraduate institution, her mother’s job took the entire family to San Francisco’s East Bay area, where she spent her senior year at a school one fifth that size. That was an interesting adjustment, but on the bright side she finally moved up to varsity on the swim team! Of course, the competition wasn’t as stiff, but whatever.

After graduating from high school, Anna moved forty minutes down I-680 to go to Santa Clara University (or Sahnta Clahra if you’re Kiera Knightley in Bend it Like Beckham). After battling homesickness, she became quite the joiner. She served three years on the Peer Judicial Board and was a Frosh Escape leader, an Orientation Leader, the Fiction Editor and Associate Editor of the Santa Clara Review (the university’s undergraduate-run literary journal), a Junior and Senior Senator and a committee chair in Associated Students, the editor of her chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta, and wrote the occasional book review for the university newspaper. In her free time, she managed to double-degree in English and Political Science.

A stint at the University of Denver Publishing Institute after graduation led to an editorial assistant position in textbook publishing, which she left eleven months later to attend the University of Chicago for her Master’s degree in the Humanities, concentrating on literature and creative writing. It is at the U of C that she finished writing All Unquiet Things, which served as her thesis project. Shortly after matriculating, Anna moved once again to New York, where she works in book marketing, aspires towards infinity by acquiring many more books than can fit inside her tiny apartment, and spends a lot of time on public transportation.

This is her website.