Bio
 Nancy Jo Sales was born on October 15, 1964, in West Palm Beach, Florida. In 1972, she moved with her mother and stepfather to Miami, where they owned a health food restaurant. 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 1988 she enrolled in Columbia University’s graduate program in Writing, receiving her M.F.A. in 1991. From 1991 to 1993, she worked as a freelance reporter, writer and copy editor for many publications including the National Enquirer, Soap Opera Digest, High Times, Mademoiselle, The New York Times Magazine and New York.
In 1994, she became a reporter for People, and then in 1995, a New York Correspondent. In 1996, after writing several pieces for New York, she was hired there as a full-time writer. From 1996 to 2000, at New York, she covered a variety of subjects including youth culture. She continued to freelance for Allure, Marie Claire, Vibe, Vogue, the New York Observer and other publications. In 1999, she became a contributing editor at Harper's Bazaar. Her piece on Donald Trump and hip hop, "Money Boss Player," was included in the Da Capo Press' Best Music Writing 2000.
 In 2000, she was hired at Vanity Fair, where she has written pieces on Hugh Hefner, Paris Hilton 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 movies, including "The Baby Dinner" (New York, 1999), which in 2003 was optioned by Working Title Films. In 2000, she had a daughter, Zazie May. They live in the East Village in New York.
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