Short Story Contest Judge
Abigail DeWitt
Abigail DeWitt is the author of three novels, Lili (WW Norton), Dogs (Lorimer Press), and News of Our Loved Ones (HarperCollins). The New York Times described her work as “engrossing and ambitious” and Dogs, which was a Boston Globe bestseller, was described by the Charlotte Observer as “a work of art.” News of Our Loved Ones, her most recent novel, was named an Editor’s Choice by both Book Browse and the Historical Novel Society. Often compared to Irène Némerovsky’s Suite Française, the novel, based on DeWitt’s family’s experiences during WWII, received rave reviews from Booklist, Ms. Magazine, Lilith, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Book Page, The Greensboro News & Record, The Wilmington Star, and many other publications.
Her short fiction, which has been cited in The Best American Short Stories and nominated for a Pushcart, has appeared in such journals as Narrative, Five Points, the Alaska Quarterly Review, Witness, the Carolina Quarterly, the Journal, and Salamander. Her nonfiction has been published in LitHub, the LA Review of Books, BookTrib, Vida, and other outlets.
The recipient of grants and fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council, the McColl Center for the Arts, the Tyrone Guthrie Center, and the Michener Society, DeWitt has taught creative writing at Harvard University Summer School, UNC-Asheville, and Appalachian State University. In 2010, she was the Writer-in-Residence at Lenoir-Rhyne University. She is on the permanent faculty of the Table Rock Writers Workshop (formerly the Duke University Writers Workshop) and has taught in writing workshops throughout the east coast and in France.
She received her B.A. in English and American Literature from Harvard University, and her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers Workshop, where she studied with James Alan McPherson.
Online at www.abigaildewitt.com
Instagram at @abigaildewittauthor.
