Bio

Nancy Jo Sales was born on October 15, 1964, in West Palm Beach, Florida. In 1972, her family moved to Miami. In 1980, they moved to New Hampshire, and Nancy Jo enrolled in the Phillips Exeter Academy. She graduated with Highest Honors, and was a Presidential Scholar in 1982.

In 1986 she graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with a B.A. in Literature from Yale, which awarded her its Willet’s Prize for fiction writing. From 1986 to 1988 she lived in Tokyo, where she worked as an English teacher.

In 1991 she received her M.F.A. from Columbia University’s graduate program in writing. From 1991 to 1993 she worked as a freelance reporter, writer and copy editor for many publications including the National Enquirer, the New York Times Magazine, and New York.

In 1994, she became a reporter at People, and in 1995, a New York Correspondent. In 1996, she was hired as a Contributing Editor at New York, where she covered a variety of subjects including youth culture. In 1999, she became a Contributing Editor at Harper's Bazaar.

In 2000 her piece for Vibe on Donald Trump, "Money Boss Player," was included in the Da Capo Press’s Peter Guralnick-edited Best Music Writing 2000. Her story "Woody and Me" is included in 2008’s New York Stories: Landmark Writing From Four Decades of New York Magazine.

In 2000, she was hired at Vanity Fair, where she has written pieces on Hugh Hefner, Angelina Jolie, and Damien Hirst. In 2003, her story about the hanging death of Ray Golden, an African-American man in Belle Glade, Florida ("Somebody Hung my Baby"), uncovered inconsistencies in the police account of Golden’s death, which had been ruled a suicide. Not long after her piece was published, the police chief of Belle Glade resigned.

Many of her stories have been optioned for films, including "The Baby Dinner" (New York), which in 2003 was optioned by Working Title Films and is being produced by Julia Roberts. Her 2008 piece for Vanity Fair, "The Golden Suicides," was optioned by Ithaka Films and is being written for the screen by Gus Van Sant and Bret Easton Ellis. In 2000, she had a daughter, Zazie May. They live in the East Village in New York.