The winner of a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, Margo Jefferson is the author of Negroland, which was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize (formerly the Samuel Johnson) and On Michael Jackson and is a professor of writing at Columbia University School of the Arts.

She was for years a theatre and book critic for Newsweek and the New York Times. Her writing has appeared in, among other publications, the Guardian, Vogue, New York magazine, and the New Republic.