Jill Ciment was born in Montreal, Canada. She is the author of Small Claims, a collection of shorts stories and novellas; Half a Life, a memoir; and several novels including The Tattoo Artist and Teeth of the Dog. She has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts, a NEA Japan Fellowship Prize, two New York State Fellowships for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Ciment is a professor at the University of Florida, and lives with her husband in Gainesville, Florida, and Brooklyn, New York.