Jenny Offill was the only child of two private-school English teachers. She spent her childhood years across various US cities, including Massachusetts, California, Indiana, and North Carolina. Jenny Offill attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Offill teaches in the MFA programs at Brooklyn College, Columbia University and Queens University. Offill's first novel Last Things was published in 1999 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and in the UK by Bloomsbury. It was a New York Times Notable book and a finalist for the L.A Times First Book Award. Offill's second novel Dept. of Speculation was published in January 2014 and was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review. Dept. of Speculation has been shortlisted for the Folio Prize in the UK, the Pen/Faulkner Award and the L.A. Times Fiction Award.