Jillian Medoff is the acclaimed author of five novels. Her most recent, WHEN WE WERE BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL, was longlisted for the 2023 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize. A story about privilege, consent, and dirty, sexy money, the novel was a Book of the Month Club feature selection, an Apple Books Best of the Month, an Audible Editor’s Pick, a PEOPLE Pick of the Week, and a favorite of Town and Country Magazine, Oprah Daily, and others.
Featuring “uncannily insightful takes on the dark side of family institutions” (Entertainment Weekly), Jillian’s novels include THIS COULD HURT, I COULDN’T LOVE YOU MORE (national bestseller), GOOD GIRLS GONE BAD, and HUNGER POINT. HUNGER POINT was made into an original Lifetime movie starring Christina Hendricks and Barbara Hershey, directed by Joan Micklin Silver.
A former fellow at MacDowell, Blue Mountain Center, VCCA and Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain, Jillian has an MFA from NYU and a BA from Barnard College. She studied with Mona Simpson and Jonathan Dee; and took master classes with Toni Morrison, Grace Paley, and Joyce Carol Oates. Jillian’s MFA experience was life-changing. She sold her graduate thesis to HarperCollins where it was retitled HUNGER POINT and published as her debut novel in 1997. Back then, readers loved the deeply depressed Frannie; now, they hate her and her whole stupid, self-absorbed family. Times change, culture evolves, and still, trauma endures.
In addition to writing novels, Jillian has a long career in corporate consulting. Over the years, she’s worked for a wide range of employers, including Deloitte and Aon. Now with Segal Benz, she advises clients on communication strategies for all aspects of the employee experience.
Jillian lives with her husband, Keith Dawson and three adult daughters, who come and go. She reviews fiction for the New York Times Book Review, and is currently working on her sixth novel, THE COMMITTEE, a story about medical ethics and race in Seattle, circa 1961.