Olivia Clare 

India Downes-Le Guin

Olivia Clare is the author of a short story collection, Disasters in the First World, from Black Cat/Grove Atlantic. Her novel is forthcoming from Grove Atlantic. She is also the author of a book of poems, The 26-Hour Day (New Issues, 2015). Her awards include a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award (in fiction), the Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship from Colgate University (in poetry), a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and fellowships from the Tin House Writers’ Workshop, the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, and Djerassi Resident Artists Program. In 2014, she won an O. Henry Prize for her first published story, “Pétur.” Her stories have appeared in GrantaThe American ScholarSouthern Review, n+1, Boston Review, Ecotone, ZYZZYVA and elsewhere. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Southern Review, London Magazine, FIELD, and elsewhereShe has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a master’s degree from the University of Southern California, and a PhD in Literature with Creative Dissertation from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she was a Black Mountain Institute Fellow. She has taught in the MFA program at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English, Creative Writing, at the University of Southern Mississippi.