Hillary Jordan grew up in Dallas, Texas and Muskogee, Oklahoma. She received her BA in English and Political Science from Wellesley College and spent fifteen years working as an advertising copywriter before starting to write fiction. She got her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University.

Mudbound, published by Algonquin Books in March 2008, is her first novel. It won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for Fiction, awarded biennially to an unpublished debut novel that addresses issues of social justice, and was the 2008 NAIBA (New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Assoc.) Fiction Book of the Year. It won a 2009 Alex Award from the American Library Association and was longlisted for the 2009 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Paste Magazine named Mudbound one of the top ten debut novels of the decade.

Hillary lives in Tivoli, New York but will soon be moving back to NYC.