Gillian Flynn was born in Kansas City, Missouri to two community-college professors—her mother taught reading; her father, film. For college, she headed to the University of Kansas (go Jayhawks), where she received her undergraduate degrees in English and Journalism. After a two-year stint writing about human resources for a trade magazine in California, Flynn moved to Chicago. There she earned her master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University and discovered that she was way too wimpy to make it as a crime reporter. On the other hand, she was a movie geek with a journalism degree—so she moved to New York City and joined Entertainment Weekly magazine, where she wrote happily for 10 years, visiting film sets around the world. During her last four years at EW, Flynn was the TV critic. Flynn’s 2006 debut novel, the literary mystery Sharp Objects, was an Edgar Award finalist and the winner of two of Britain’s Dagger Awards—the first book ever to win multiple Daggers in one year. Movie rights have been sold. Flynn's second novel, the 2009 New York Times bestseller Dark Places, was a New Yorker Reviewers' Favorite, Weekend TODAY Top Summer Read, Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2009, and Chicago Tribune Favorite Fiction choice. Movie rights have been sold, with Gilles Paquet-Brenner (Sarah's Key) to direct. Flynn’s third novel, Gone Girl, was released in June 2012. Flynn's work has been published in twenty-eight countries. She lives in Chicago.