Her novel, As Close to Us as Breathing, captured the 2017 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. In May 2017, the book was named a finalist for the 2017 Library of Virginia People’s Choice Award. Last November, As Close to Us as Breathing was selected as one of Amazon’s Top 100 Editors’ Picks for 2016 and was an Amazon Spotlight Pick in Fiction for March of that year.
She is also the author of Mutual Life & Casualty, a novel in stories, and What You Know in Your Hands, a poetry collection. Her stories and poems have been published in literary journals nationwide, and her awards include numerous individual artist grants from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, fiction fellowships to the Wesleyan and Sewanee writer’s conferences, and artist residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, the Wurlitzer Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
As Close to Us as Breathing, novel (Lee Boudreaux Books / Little, Brown & Co, 2016)
What You Know in Your Hands, poems (David Robert Books, 2015).
Sudden Fog, poetry chapbook (Spire Press, 2011).
Mutual Life & Casualty, novel-in-stories (Permanent Press, 2005).
Stories published in Story, TriQuarterly, Michigan Quarterly Review, Kenyon Review, Colorado Review, and The Southampton Review, among other journals.
Poems published in The Sun, Southern Review, The Hopkins Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, and Connecticut Poetry Review, among other journals.
Craft Article: “How Mapping Alice Munro’s Stories Helped Me as a Writer,” Literary Hub (lithub.com), April 2016.
Accomplishments
Awards for As Close to Us as Breathing:
Winner, Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in Fiction, 2017
Finalist, Harold U. Ribalow Prize for Jewish Fiction, 2017
Finalist, Library of Virginia People’s Choice Award in Fiction, 2017
Pennie’s Pick, Costco, February 2017
An Amazon Best Book of 2016
Long-listed, Center for Fiction’s Debut Novel Award, 2016
What You Know in Your Hands, selected as a Beltway Poetry Quarterly Best Book of 2015.
Awarded residencies at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Wurlitzer Foundation, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Awarded Fiction Fellowships at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference (2016) and the Wesleyan Writers’ Conference (2016).
Awarded Individual Artists Grants from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities in Fiction (2008, 2006, 2004, 2002, 1998, 1995) and in Poetry (2000).
Recent Presentations:
“The Wandering Stops Here: Place as Central in Jewish-American Fiction,” AWP Conference, Portland, OR, 2019.
“Character and Plot Development in Fiction,” Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., Associate Resident Program, 2019.
“A Tolerance for Uncertainty: Beginnings as an Act of Faith,” New Directions Writing Conference, The Washington Center for Psychoanalysis, Washington, D.C. 2017.
