Sarah Rose Etter

Last updated

Sarah Rose Etter
OccupationAuthor
NationalityAmerican
Education Pennsylvania State University (BA)
Rosemont College (MFA)
Genre Experimental literature
Notable awards Shirley Jackson Award (2019)
Website
www.sarahroseetter.com

Sarah Rose Etter is an American author of experimental fiction. Her novels include Ripe [1] , and The Book of X [2] , which won the 2019 Shirley Jackson Award for Novel. [3]

Contents

Her work has appeared in The New York Times [4] , The Atlantic [5] , Time [6] , Vice, [7] The Cut, [8] and more. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California.

Career

Etter received her B.A. in English from Pennsylvania State University, and received her M.F.A. in Fiction from Rosemont College. [9]

Her short story collection Tongue Party was selected by writer and judge Deb Olin Unferth as the winner of the 2010 Caketrain Chapbook Competition. [10] Tongue Party was later translated into French (as Hommes sous verre) by Véronique Béghain and published by éditions do. [11] A review in [PANK] praised the collection, stating that "[Etter] takes you into this disturbing world with her phrasing; she takes you to a place that is a rabbit hole, a witching well, an unframed mirror." [12] LitStack's review praised the book as well, stating that "Sarah Rose Etter uses all of the tools and talents at her disposal — her memory, her body, her touch — to pack her small stories with meaning and emotion. The stories are dark, twisted, beautiful and always poetic." [13]

Etter's first novel, The Book of X, was published by Two Dollar Radio in 2019. [14] It tells the story of the life of a young woman born with a literal knot in her stomach, making her way through a surreal landscape. Kirkus Reviews dubbed The Book of X "a relentlessly original look at what it means to exist in a female body." [15] The Star Tribune 's review of the novel noted that "Etter writes her weird world with elastic prose, as stripped-down at certain points as it is lyrical in others." [16] Cleveland Review of Books said it "blurs the lines between the real and the surreal, forcing readers to confront the sense of danger the uncanny evokes." [17] The Book of X was a finalist for the 2019 Believer Book Award, [18] a finalist for the 2019 Golden Poppy Book Award, [19] and longlisted for the 2019 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. [20]

Etter's second novel, Ripe, was published by Scribner in July 2023. [21] It follows a woman whose dream job with a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up pushes her into increasingly unethical territory while she navigates an unplanned pregnancy and the relentless pull of the black hole that has been her constant companion since birth. The New York Times said the novel was sharp, absorbing, and unforgettable [22] .

Etter has also written extensively about visual art, [23] and a quote from Carol Rama serves as the epigraph for The Book of X. [24] Etter delivered a keynote address at the 2017 Society for the Study of American Women Writers conference, held at Bordeaux Montaigne University. [25] The title of her address was "Bizarre Feminism: Surrealism in the Service of a Movement." [26]

Works

References

  1. Ripe. March 5, 2024. ISBN   978-1-6680-1164-5.
  2. "The Book of X". Two Dollar Radio. Retrieved February 19, 2020.
  3. "The Shirley Jackson Awards" . Retrieved June 25, 2020.
  4. "An Instagram Poet, a Billionaire and the End of the World (Published 2024)". May 18, 2024. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  5. Etter, Sarah Rose (August 6, 2025). "The Tech Novel's Warning for a Screen-Addled Age". The Atlantic. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  6. Etter, Sarah Rose. "The Reversal of Roe Sealed My Decision to Leave Texas". TIME. Archived from the original on September 24, 2025. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  7. Etter, Lia Kantrowitz,Sarah Rose (June 8, 2017). "Roxane Gay Tells Us About Daring to Be Fat". Vice. Retrieved April 6, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. Etter, Sarah Rose (November 15, 2018). "When You Get Waxed for a Bad Man". The Cut. Retrieved April 6, 2020.
  9. "bio & contact". sarah rose etter. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  10. subitopress. "Caketrain – Subito Press". Archived from the original on August 8, 2014. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  11. "Hommes sous verre – éditions do" (in French). Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  12. Gay, Roxane (May 11, 2011). "Sarah Rose Etter's Tongue Party: A Review by Dawn West". [PANK]. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  13. Norman, Jason Lee (October 12, 2011). "TONGUE PARTY by Sarah Rose Etter". litstack.com. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  14. "Q+A with Sarah Rose Etter about The Book of X". Two Dollar Radio. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  15. THE BOOK OF X by Sarah Rose Etter | Kirkus Reviews.
  16. "Review: 'The Book of X,' by Sarah Rose Etter". Star Tribune. July 12, 2019. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  17. "The Weight of One's Lineage: On Sarah Rose Etter's "The Book of X"". Cleveland Review of Books. Retrieved November 1, 2021.
  18. "The Believer Book Awards: Editors' Longlists". Believer Magazine. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  19. "Golden Poppy Awards". California Independent Booksellers Alliance. Archived from the original on April 27, 2020. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
  20. "VCU Cabell First Novelist Award". firstnovelist.vcu.edu. Retrieved April 6, 2020.
  21. Etter, Sarah Rose (July 11, 2023). Ripe. Simon and Schuster. ISBN   978-1-6680-1163-8.
  22. "For a Tech Employee in Silicon Valley, a 'Black Hole' Looms Large (Published 2023)". July 8, 2023. Retrieved November 15, 2025.
  23. "Sarah Rose Etter" . Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  24. Etter, Kate Durbin interviews Sarah Rose (September 4, 2019). "Women in Knots: A Conversation with Sarah Rose Etter". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  25. "2017 Université Bordeaux Montaigne". SSAWW. March 26, 2016. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
  26. "Border Crossings:Translation, Migration, & Gender in the Americas, the Transatlantic, & the Transpacific - Sciencesconf.org". ssaww2017.sciencesconf.org. Retrieved January 19, 2020.