Jan Elizabeth Watson is a writer who lives and teaches in Maine. A graduate of Columbia University’s MFA program. her first novel, Asta in the Wings, was published by Tin House Books to critical acclaim in 2009. An Italian edition of the novel, Le Prigione di Neve, was published by Fazi Editore shortly thereafter. Her anticipated second novel, What Has Become of You, will be published wordwide by Dutton in the spring of 2014.

She once rather famously described herself as being “one part Shaft, and two parts Emily Bronte.” A fundamentally kindhearted and tender soul, she has been known to identify actors by their cause of death and checks out suspicious quantities of true crime books from her local library. She feeds stray cats and chases purse-snatchers, all while maintaining a ladylike demeanor from days gone by. She enjoys discovering neglected should-have-been classic novels and shuns modern should-not-have-been-invented technologies (while still gamely using some of them– i.e., websites, computers, and the electric toaster).