Nina Schuyler

My short story collection, IN THIS RAVISHING WORLD, won the W.S. Porter Prize and the Prism Prize for Climate Literature. Nine short stories circling around the climate crisis, a kaleidoscope of characters. My new novel, AFTERWORD, won the PenCraft Seasonal Book Award for Fiction-Science Fiction and is a Foreword INDIE Finalist for Fiction and Science Fiction. It's a grand love story wrapped in artificial intelligence. It has a big heart and a big scope, raising the most important question: what does it mean to be human? My novel THE TRANSLATOR was a finalist for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing and the winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Award for General Fiction. My debut novel THE PAINTING was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award and was named by MSNBC a "fearless debut." My nonfiction book, HOW TO WRITE STUNNING SENTENCES, is a Small Press Distribution bestseller, and my new craft book, STUNNING SENTENCES: A CREATIVE WRITING JOURNAL WITH 80 PROMPTS FROM BELOVED WRITERS TO IMPROVE YOUR STYLE is also a bestseller. I nerded out on education, earning an undergraduate degree at Stanford University, a law degree at UC Law San Francisco (formerly Hastings College of the Law), and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at San Francisco State University. Eclectic, said one acquaintance. Really, the truth is, I didn't know what I wanted to do. That's the short version. A longer version: For many years, the idea of writing fiction intimidated me. (The Greats staring down with disapproval). As a girl, I read all the time, but I didn't write. Well, technically that's not true. I kept a spy log. My favorite book was HARRIET THE SPY by Louise Fitzhugh. I spied on my sisters. My mother. My father. I wrote things down. K got a bad grade and stuffed her report card behind her stinky pink socks. L licks her lips when she talks about chocolate. D's breath smells like salami. Why? WHY!!! Eventually, I found the classics in BIG PRINT and read them all. Of course, when I was older, I had to reread them because I didn't remember a thing. I became a newspaper reporter, a magazine writer, a greeting card designer, a fitness instructor, a painting teacher, a tennis coach, an investment banker, a lawyer, (not in this order), and then, I wrote a short story. Then many short stories and after work, went to school and earned an MFA. I wrote a novel that will remain forever in a drawer and then another novel, then another, and another. A new one is in the works. There's always something in the works. I still keep a spy log.