Elizabeth McCracken

Elizabeth McCracken laces her work with distinctive humor; in her stories, the fantastical exists side by side with—and reveals the often tragic absurdities of—everyday life. 

Elizabeth’s inspirations and obsessions are impossible to categorize—her books defy description. Even the New York Times struggles to classify her novel in a rave review: “Bowlaway is a large and caterwauling sort of opera buffa, packed with outsize characters—some with recherché talents—and wild, often dreamlike events. If this novel were a bar, it would be the kind of joint where the Christmas lights are left on all year long.” She is the author of eight books, including The Hero of This Book, The Souvenir Museum, Bowlaway, Thunderstruck & Other Stories (winner of the 2014 Story Prize and long-listed for the National Book Award), and The Giant’s House (a National Book Award finalist).

Elizabeth has received grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Liguria Study Center, the American Academy in Berlin, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Thunderstruck & Other Stories won the 2015 Story Prize – her other stories have won three Pushcart Prizes, a National Magazine Award, and an O. Henry Prize and have been published in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, The O. Henry Prize, The New York Times Magazine, and many other places.

During her career, she has served on the faculty at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has also held the James Michener Chair for Fiction at the University of Texas at Austin. Elizabeth and her family live in a Texas bungalow packed with artifacts.