Jessa Maxwell has worked as a journalist and illustrator for over fifteen years, and is the author and illustrator of five picture books. She has lived in Egypt, Thailand and the Netherlands. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Jezebel, Marie Claire and many others, and her cartoons and illustrations have been published in the New Yorker, The New York Times and Condé Nast Traveller.

She now lives in Jamestown, Rhode Island, with her husband, two cats and three-legged dog. The Golden Spoon is her debut novel.