Joyce Carol Oates is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and non-fiction. Her novels Black Water (1992), What I Lived For (1994), and Blonde (2000), and her short story collections The Wheel of Love (1970) and Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories (2014) were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She has won many awards for her writing, including the National Book Award, for her novel them (1969), two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the Jerusalem Prize (2019).
Anne Tyler is an American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She has published twenty-four novels, including Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982), The Accidental Tourist (1985), and Breathing Lessons (1988). All three were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and Breathing Lessons won the prize in 1989. She has also won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012 she was awarded The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. Tyler's twentieth novel, A Spool of Blue Thread, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2015, and Redhead By the Side of the Road was longlisted for the same award in 2020.
Alice Hoffman is an American novelist and young-adult and children's writer, best known for her 1995 novel Practical Magic, which was adapted for a 1998 film of the same name. Many of her works fall into the genre of magic realism and contain elements of magic, irony, and non-standard romances and relationships.
Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a former fiction editor at Boston Review. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freedom University, a volunteer organization in Georgia that provides post-secondary instruction to undocumented immigrants. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience, particularly the Latino immigrant experience.
Jayne Anne Phillips is an American novelist and short story writer who was born in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia.
Alice Elliott Dark is a writer of short stories, novels and essays. She is the author of the story collections Naked to the Waist and In the Gloaming and the novels Think of England and Fellowship Point, published by Scribner/Marysue Rucci Books in July 2022.
Rebecca Margot Godfrey was a Canadian novelist and nonfiction writer.
Elizabeth Gilbert is an American journalist and author. She is best known for her 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love, which has sold over 12 million copies and has been translated into over 30 languages. The book was also made into a film of the same name in 2010.
Paul Lisicky is an American novelist and memoirist. He is an associate professor in the MFA Program at Rutgers University-Camden, and the author of several books.
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.
Maureen Theresa Howard was an American novelist, memoirist, and editor. Her award-winning novels feature women protagonists and are known for formal innovation and a focus on the Irish-American experience.
Shira Nayman is a novelist and short story writer best known for her collection Awake in the Dark, published in 2006. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Highland Park, New Jersey, with her husband, the psychologist and writer, Louis Sass.
Jillian Lauren is an American writer, performer, adoption advocate, and former call girl for Jefri Bolkiah, Prince of Brunei; about whom she wrote her first memoir, Some Girls: My Life in a Harem.
Pam Jenoff is an American author, lawyer, and professor of law at Rutgers University. She writes both love stories and historical novels, some of which have been nominated for awards and many of which have been bestsellers. She is still currently writing and lives with her 3 children and husband in New Jersey. Her books are highly recommended and have won prizes before.
Paula Jane Kiri Morris is a New Zealand novelist, short-story writer editor and literary academic. She is an associate professor at the University of Auckland and founder of the Academy of New Zealand Literature.
A Friend of the Family is a novel by Lauren Grodstein which takes place in the modern day suburbia of Northern New Jersey where the main character, Pete Dizinoff, a skilled internist, lives in a large house with his wife Elaine and son Alec. Pete's life begins to crumble when his best friend's daughter, Laura Stern, comes back into town years after a shocking crime and becomes involved with Pete's son, threatening Pete's plans for Alec.
Valeria Luiselli is a Mexican-American author. 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 2019 novel, Lost Children Archive won the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
Chinelo Okparanta is a Nigerian-American novelist and short-story writer. She was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where she was raised until the age of 10, when she emigrated to the United States with her family.
Belinda McKeon is an Irish writer. She is the author of two novels, Solace, which won the 2011 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and Tender (2015).
Gaiutra Bahadur is a Guyanese-American writer. She is best known for Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture, which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2014.
