Samantha Hunt

Last updated

Samantha Hunt
SHUNT copy.jpg
Born (1971-05-15) May 15, 1971 (age 52)
OccupationNovelist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
Notable works The Seas , The Dark Dark,Mr. Splitfoot,The Invention of Everything Else, The Unwritten Book
Notable awards St. Francis College Literary Prize
Website
www.samanthahunt.net

Samantha Hunt (born May 15, 1971) is an American novelist, essayist and short-story writer.

Contents

She is the author of The Dark Dark and The Unwritten Book, published by Farrar, Straus, Giroux; The Seas, published by MacAdam/Cage and Tin House; [1] and the novels Mr. Splitfoot and The Invention of Everything Else , [2] published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Early life

Hunt was born the youngest of six children [3] in 1971. Her father was an editor, her mother is a painter. [4] She moved in 1989 to attend the University of Vermont, [5] where she studied literature, printmaking and geology. She received her MFA from Warren Wilson College, before moving to New York City in 1999. [4]

Career

Books

Hunt's debut novel, The Seas, first published in 2004, is a magical-realist novel about a young girl in a Northern town who believes herself to be a mermaid. [6] The book was voted one of the Village Voice Literary Supplement's Favorite Books of 2004, [7] and won the National Book Foundation award for "5 under 35" in 2006. [8] In 2018, The Seas was republished by Tin House Books in 2018 with a foreword by Maggie Nelson. [7]

In 2008, she published her second novel, The Invention of Everything Else through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The novel provides a fictionalized account of the final days of inventor Nikola Tesla. It won both the Bard Fiction Prize in 2010, and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. [9]

Her other novels include Mr. Splitfoot (2016), a ghost story, [10] and The Dark Dark: Stories (2017), a collection of short stories.

Hunt's short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker , New York Times Magazine , McSweeney's , The Atlantic , A Public Space , Cabinet , Esquire , The Believer , Blind Spot, Harper’s Bazaar, The Village Voice , Seed Magazine , Tin House , New York Magazine , on the radio program This American Life and in a number of anthologies including Trampoline edited by Kelly Link. Hunt's play, The Difference Engine, a story about the life of Charles Babbage, was produced by the Theater of a Two-Headed Calf.

Awards

Hunt won the Bard Fiction Prize, [11] the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 award, [12] the St. Francis College Literary Prize [13] and was a finalist for the Orange Prize. [14] In 2017, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction. [15]

Literary influences

Hunt's credits her experiences growing up one of six children for her interest in literature, [16] her dialogue, [17] and her fictional portrayals of motherhood. [3]

Profession

Hunt is a professor of writing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. [10]

Bibliography

Books

Online texts

Short stories

  • "A Love Story", The New Yorker, 22 May 2017 [18]
  • "The Yellow", The New Yorker, 21 November 2010 [19]
  • "Three Days", The New Yorker, 8 January 2016 [20]
  • "Go Team", The Atlantic, March 2020 [21]

Essays

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">T. C. Boyle</span> American novelist and short-story writer

Thomas Coraghessan Boyle, also known as T. C. Boyle and T. Coraghessan Boyle, is an American novelist and short story writer. Since the mid-1970s, he has published nineteen novels and more than 100 short stories. He won the PEN/Faulkner award in 1988, for his third novel, World's End, which recounts 300 years in upstate New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gish Jen</span> American writer and speaker

Gish Jen is a contemporary American writer and speaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Chidgey</span> New Zealand writer

Catherine Chidgey is a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer and university lecturer. Her honours include the inaugural Prize in Modern Letters; the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship to Menton, France; Best First Book at both the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize ; the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards; and the Janet Frame Fiction Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenny Offill</span> American writer and editor

Jenny Offill is an American novelist and editor. Her novel Dept. of Speculation was named one of "The 10 Best Books of 2014" by The New York Times Book Review.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pankaj Mishra</span> Award-winning Indian essayist-novelist

Pankaj Mishra FRSL is an Indian essayist, novelist, and socialist political figure. His non-fiction works include Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia and A Great Clamour: Encounters with China and Its Neighbours, and has published two novels. He is a Bloomberg opinion columnist, and prolific contributor to other periodicals such as the Guardian, the New York Times, The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. His writings have led to a number of controversies, including disputes with Salil Tripathi, Niall Ferguson and Jordan Peterson. He was awarded the Windham–Campbell Prize for non-fiction in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Saunders</span> American writer (born 1958)

George Saunders is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas, children's books, and novels. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, McSweeney's, and GQ. He also contributed a weekly column, American Psyche, to The Guardian's weekend magazine between 2006 and 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lan Samantha Chang</span> American fiction writer

Lan Samantha Chang is an American writer of novels and short stories. She is the Elizabeth M. Stanley Professor in the Arts at the University of Iowa and the Director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the first woman, and the first Asian American, to hold that position.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Sean Greer</span> American novelist and short story writer (born 1970)

Andrew Sean Greer is an American novelist and short story writer. Greer received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel Less. He is the author of The Story of a Marriage, which The New York Times has called an “inspired, lyrical novel,” and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was named one of the best books of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and received a California Book Award.

Nicole Krauss is an American author best known for her four novels Man Walks into a Room (2002), The History of Love (2005), Great House (2010) and Forest Dark (2017), which have been translated into 35 languages. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and Granta's Best American Novelists Under 40, and has been collected in Best American Short Stories 2003, Best American Short Stories 2008 and Best American Short Stories 2019. In 2011, Nicole Krauss won an award from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards for Great House. A collection of her short stories, To Be a Man, was published in 2020 and won the Wingate Literary Prize in 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Strout</span> American writer

Elizabeth Strout is an American novelist and author. She is widely known for her works in literary fiction and her descriptive characterization. She was born and raised in Portland, Maine, and her experiences in her youth served as inspiration for her novels–the fictional "Shirley Falls, Maine" is the setting of four of her nine novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph O'Neill (writer, born 1964)</span> Irish novelist & non-fiction writer

Joseph O'Neill is an Irish novelist and non-fiction writer. O'Neill's novel Netherland was awarded the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karen Russell</span> American writer (born 1981)

Karen Russell is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2009 the National Book Foundation named Russell a 5 under 35 honoree. She was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 2013.

Peter Orner is an American writer. He is the author of two novels, two story collections and a book of essays. Orner holds the Professorship of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and was formerly a professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University. He spent 2016 and 2017 on a Fulbright in Namibia teaching at the University of Namibia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lauren Groff</span> American writer

Lauren Groff is an American novelist and short story writer. She has written four novels and two short story collections, including Fates and Furies (2015), Florida (2018), and Matrix (2021).

<i>The Invention of Everything Else</i> 2008 novel Samantha Hunt

The Invention of Everything Else is a 2008 novel written by American author Samantha Hunt. The novel presents a fictionalized account of the last days in the life of Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American electrical engineer. Other fictionalized versions of historical characters include Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Mark Twain. Tesla is the novel's protagonist along with a chambermaid named Louisa with whom he shares some common interests including science and pigeons. Much of the book takes place in the New Yorker Hotel. The book also includes elements of science fiction, namely time travel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valeria Luiselli</span> Mexican writer

Valeria Luiselli is a Mexican author living in the United States. She is the author of the book of essays Sidewalks and the novel Faces in the Crowd, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Luiselli's 2015 novel The Story of My Teeth was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Best Translated Book Award, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Fiction, and she was awarded the Premio Metropolis Azul in Montreal, Quebec. Luiselli's books have been translated into more than 20 languages, with her work appearing in publications including, The New York Times, Granta, McSweeney's, and The New Yorker. Her book, Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Luiselli's 2020 novel, Lost Children Archive won the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ottessa Moshfegh</span> American author (born 1981)

Ottessa Charlotte Moshfegh is an American author and novelist. Her debut novel, Eileen (2015), won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a fiction finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Moshfegh's subsequent novels include My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Death in Her Hands, and Lapvona.

Alexandra Kleeman is an American writer. Winner of the 2020 Rome Prize, her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Akil Kumarasamy is an American author and an assistant professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences-Newark. Her collection of short stories Half Gods won The Story Prize Spotlight Award and the 2021–2022 Annual Bard Fiction Prize. Her novel Meet Us by the Roaring Sea was released in August 2022.

Brandon Taylor is an American writer. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa and has received several fellowships for his writing. His short stories and essays have been published in many outlets and have received critical acclaim. His debut novel, Real Life, came out in 2020 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2022, Taylor's Filthy Animals won The Story Prize awarded annually to collections of short fiction.

References

  1. Lyons, Stephen (December 19, 2004). "A 'mermaid holds the key to a beloved sailors fate". San Francisco Chronicle.
  2. Thomas, Louisa (March 23, 2008). "At The Hotel New Yorker". New York Times.
  3. 1 2 Leyshon, Cressida (May 23, 2017). "This Week in Fiction: Samantha Hunt on the Unspoken Terrors of Being a New Mother". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  4. 1 2 "Samantha Hunt". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  5. "Q&A with author Samantha Hunt". Financial Times. February 19, 2016. Retrieved June 19, 2022.(subscription required)
  6. "The Seas". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  7. 1 2 "Samantha Hunt : : The Seas". samanthahunt.net. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  8. "The Seas". National Book Foundation. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  9. "Samantha Hunt". www.samanthahunt.net. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
  10. 1 2 "Pratt Institute". www.pratt.edu. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
  11. "Samantha Hunt, 2010 Recipient" Bard Fiction Prize.
  12. "KQED, Public Media for Northern California". www.kqed.org.
  13. "Samantha Hunt Wins 2019 SFC Literary Prize for The Dark Dark". St. Francis College. September 21, 2019. Retrieved March 24, 2023.
  14. Itzkoff, David (April 21, 2009). "Orange Prize Finalists Announced". New York Times.
  15. "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Samantha Hunt" . Retrieved March 10, 2020.
  16. "Samantha Hunt: By the Book". The New York Times. June 21, 2018. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved March 10, 2020.
  17. Gebremedhin, Thomas (February 11, 2020). "Samantha Hunt on the Unbearable Flatness of Being". The Atlantic. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
  18. Hunt, Samantha (May 15, 2017). ""A Love Story"". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  19. Hunt, Samantha (November 22, 2010). "The Yellow". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  20. Hunt, Samantha (January 9, 2006). "Three Days". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  21. Hunt, Samantha (February 11, 2020). "Go, Team". The Atlantic. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  22. Hunt, Samantha. "There Is Only One Direction". The Cut. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  23. "Queer Theorem | Samantha Hunt". Lapham’s Quarterly. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  24. Hunt, Samantha (April 1, 2011). "Terrible Twins". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  25. Beckmann, Claire; Samantha Hunt (December 12, 2017). "Swiss Near-miss". This American Life. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
  26. Hunt, Samantha (January 4, 2016). "A Brief History of Books That Do Not Exist". Literary Hub. Retrieved February 24, 2022.