ZZ Packer, originally christened Zuwena—a Swahili name embodying the essence of "good"—came into the world in Chicago during 1973. ZZ, a nickname she claims as her own memory from earliest childhood recollections, was a moniker she shared with Richard Dorment in a candid March 2003 conversation with Interview magazine. At the tender age of five, her family uprooted to the vibrant city of Atlanta, where she spent her formative years until the age of eleven. Following her parents' separation, she journeyed to Louisville, Kentucky, to live with her mother. Throughout her early education, a fascination with math and science colored her interests until a high school teacher ignited her imagination by assigning short story writing, sowing the seeds of future literary aspiration.

Packer's academic journey led her to the storied halls of Yale University after finishing high school. Initially caught in a tug-of-war between the humanities and sciences, she leaned towards engineering, doubting that writing could sustain a livelihood. However, her post-Yale path took a detour when she enrolled in the Writing Seminar at Johns Hopkins University in the heart of Baltimore. There, under the mentorship of the insightful Francine Prose, Packer began to perceive her writing with renewed clarity and potential.

Embarking on a career as a public high school teacher, Packer juggled her passion for writing with the demands of teaching, a profession that consumed much of her energy. The quest for time to write amidst her hectic schedule led her to various summer jobs until she applied and was accepted into the revered Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, culminating her studies there in 1997.

Swift success followed her Iowa days. Her piece, “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” graced the pages of the New Yorker’s Debut Fiction issue in 2000, with her works also appearing in Seventeen, Harper’s, The Best American Short Stories (2000), and Ploughshares. A collection of eight tales, featuring "Brownies," was published in Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Riverhead Books in 2003, earning widespread acclaim from critics. The anthology caught the discerning eye of John Updike, who selected it for the Today Book Club on NBC’s Today Show in June 2003, and it garnered a nomination for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2004.

Packer draws inspiration from literary luminaries such as Toni Morrison, whose novel Beloved deeply resonates with her. She is similarly influenced by the sweeping narratives of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, the adventurous spirit of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, the profound depths of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the introspective Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, and the powerful storytelling of James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain.

By 2006, ZZ Packer had set roots in San Francisco, California, and embraced a teaching role at Stanford University. Engrossed in crafting a novel about the Buffalo Soldiers—African American troops who served in the U.S. Army post-Civil War—she continued to blend her rich historical interests with her burgeoning literary talent.