Jeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American author. He has written numerous short stories and essays, as well as three novels: The Virgin Suicides (1993), Middlesex (2002), and The Marriage Plot (2011). The Virgin Suicides served as the basis of the 1999 film of the same name, while Middlesex received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in addition to being a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the International Dublin Literary Award, and France's Prix Médicis.
Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri is a British-American author known for her short stories, novels, and essays in English and, more recently, in Italian.
Richard Ford is an American novelist and short story author, and writer of a series of novels featuring the character Frank Bascombe.
Susan Choi is an American novelist. She is the author of several acclaimed novels, including The Foreign Student (1998), American Woman (2003), and Trust Exercise (2019), which won the National Book Award for Fiction. Choi teaches creative writing at Yale University.
Ann Patchett is an American author. She received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in the same year, for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Taft (1994), The Magician's Assistant (1997), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023). The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
The Story Prize is an annual book award established in 2004 that honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Each of two runners-up receives $5,000. Eligible books must be written in English and first published in the United States during a calendar year. The founder of the prize is Julie Lindsey, and the director is Larry Dark. He was previously series editor for the annual short story anthology Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards from 1997 to 2002.
Percival Leonard Everett II is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He has described himself as "pathologically ironic" and has played around with numerous genres such as western fiction, mysteries, thrillers, satire and philosophical fiction. His books are often satirical, aimed at exploring race and identity issues in the United States.
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.
Yiyun Li is a Chinese-born writer and professor in the United States. Her short stories and novels have won several awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award and Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Where Reasons End, and the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Book of Goose. Her short story collection Wednesday's Child was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is an editor of the Brooklyn-based literary magazine A Public Space.
Claire Keegan is an Irish writer known for her short stories, which have been published in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, Granta, and The Paris Review. She is also known for her novellas, two of which have been adapted as films.
David John Chariandy is a Canadian writer and academic, presently working as a Professor of English literature at the University of Toronto. His 2017 novel Brother won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and Toronto Book Award.
Lauren Groff is an American novelist and short story writer. She has written five novels and two short story collections, including Fates and Furies (2015), Florida (2018), Matrix (2022), and The Vaster Wilds (2023).
Kate Walbert is an American novelist and short story writer who lives in New York City. Her novel, Our Kind, was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction. Her novel A Short History of Women, a New York Times bestseller, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and named one of the ten best books of 2009 by The New York Times.
The Donald Windham Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes are an American literary award which offers unrestricted grants in four categories, namely fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama. Established at Yale University in 2011, the first prizes were presented in 2013. Administered by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, the award recognizes English language writers from across the world. The mission of the award is to call attention to literary achievement and provide writers the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns. In 2017 the category of poetry was added and eight prizes have been awarded annually since then.
Rebecca Makkai is an American novelist and short story writer. She is best known for writing The Great Believers (2018) and I Have Some Questions for You (2023), which have been positively received by critics and won awards such as the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and the Libby Book Award.
Pamela Erens is an American writer who appeared on a list compiled by the Reader's Digest of "23 Contemporary Writers You Should Have Read by Now". She has written three critically acclaimed novels for adults, a highly praised novel for middle schoolers, and the memoir/critical hybrid Middlemarch and the Imperfect Life. Her debut novel, The Understory (2007), was a fiction finalist for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize,. Erens's second novel, The Virgins (2013), received accolades from many sources including The New York Times, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. It was a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Her third novel, Eleven Hours, was published in May 2016. It was named a Best Book of 2016 by The New Yorker, NPR, and Kirkus. Erens's middle grade novel, Matasha, was published in June 2021. Erens has also written essays and critical articles for publications such as The New York Times, Vogue, Elle, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Los Angeles Review of Books.
Emma Cline is an American writer and novelist from California. She published her first novel, The Girls, in 2016, to positive reviews. The book was shortlisted for the John Leonard Prize from the National Book Critics Circle and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her story collection, Daddy, was published in 2020, and her second novel, The Guest, was published in 2023. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Tin House, Granta, and The Paris Review. In 2017, Cline was named one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists, and Forbes named her one of their "30 Under 30 in Media". She is a recipient of the Plimpton Prize and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Dina Nayeri is an Iranian-American novelist, essayist, memoirist, and short story writer. She wrote the novels A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (2014) and Refuge (2017) and the creative nonfiction books: The Ungrateful Refugee (2019), The Waiting Place (2020), and Who Gets Believed (2023).
Severance is a 2018 post-apocalyptic novel by Chinese American author Ling Ma. It follows Candace Chen, an unfulfilled Bible product coordinator, before and after an incurable infection slowly obliterates global civilization. Severance explores themes of nostalgia, modern office culture, monotony, and intimate relationships. The novel, Ma's debut, won the 2018 Kirkus Prize for Fiction and was included on many prominent Best Books of 2018 lists.
Bliss Montage is a 2022 short story collection by Chinese American writer Ling Ma, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Eight stories in total, the book's pieces span topics of dating, positionality, and diaspora literature, including pieces formerly published in The Atlantic and The New Yorker. The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 2022 and The Story Prize for fiction.
