Jessica Cornwell was raised in Southern California as the eldest of eight children. Graduating in English from Stanford with Distinction and Honors in the Major, she completed her Masters in Directing and Dramaturgy at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, participated in research and grant projects in Oxford, India and Spain, and trained in Barcelona with Catalan theatre company La Fura dels Baus. In 2010 she moved to London to work in film, where she is now living and writing. The Serpent Papers is her first novel.
