Antonya Nelson

Antonya Nelson (born January 6, 1961) is an American short story writer, novelist, and creative writing professor known for her psychological explorations of daily life. She wrote the novels Nobody’s Girl, Living to Tell (2001), Bound (2011), and, most recently, published her collection of short stories Funny Once (2014). Her work has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, Redbook, Esquire and many more. She was included in The New Yorker's 1999 list as one of the “twenty young fiction writers for the new millennium”.

Early life and education Antonya Nelson was born in Wichita, Kansas on January 6, 1961. Growing up in a household filled with literature, she was encouraged at a young age to read widely. Her parents’ book collection was open to her as a young girl. She was exposed to diverse literary voices with novels like Valley of the Dolls and Emma.

Both of her parents were professors of literature at Wichita State University. Her mother also writes fiction. They were activists and friends with notable writers such as Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg wrote poems set in their hometown of Wichita, Kansas. According to Nelson in an interview with Missouri Review, the girl in "Wichita Vortex Sutra" was written partly inspired by Nelson herself. Two of her siblings studied to become psychologists.

In her early twenties, she won the Mademoiselle young writers' contest and had her story published.

She became a faculty member in 1994 at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina, and still holds that position currently. Quarterly West, Redbook, Ploughshares, Harper's, and other magazines. They have been anthologized in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories.

In 1999, Nelson & her husband guest-edited American Short Fiction’s magazine together.

Several of her novels have been New York Times Book Review Notable Books: In the Land of Men (1992), Talking in Bed (1996), Nobody's Girl: A Novel (1998), Living to Tell: A Novel (2000), and Female Trouble (2002).

Nelson wrote her novel, Nobody’s Girl (1999), with the intention of transforming typical endings to genre novels like romance or mystery into something different. She incorporates both plots into her novel and defies stereotypes. The novel itself blends psychological insight with narrative momentum and was widely reviewed for its look at marriage, memory, and identity.

In 2016, she taught a fiction workshop for the Aspen Summer Words Conference. For inspiration for novels, she has talked about how she studies people and considers why each person acts the way that they do.

In an interview conducted by Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature “Writers On the Fly”, she is asked if her short stories are entirely fiction or partly autobiographical. She replies: “in a way that dreams are real to the dreamer, the fiction is real to me”.

Nelson describes her writing and editing process as a coexistence of processes. She looks at it as something to be entertained by, something that she likes to experience by reading out loud. She prefers to write in private, waking up in the middle of the night to do so or leaving the house when she has an idea.

Both Nelson and her husband share the Cullen Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Houston.

Awards and honors

David Patrick Scholarship for Excellence in Graduate Studies, 1984 University of Georgia Press, 1988 Branigan Library Book of the Year, Las Cruces, NM, 2001, Living to Tell. New York Times 100 Notable Books 2009, Nothing Right., 2009 Kansas Library Association Book Award (for Nothing Right), 2010 New York Times 100 Notable Books 2010, Bound Kansas Library Association Book Award (for Bound), 2011

Selected works

Novels

(1998) . Talking in Bed. New York: Scribner. (1999) . Nobody's Girl: a Novel. New York: Scribner. . (2001) . Living to Tell: a Novel. New York: Scribner. . (2010) Bound. New York: Bloomsbury USA. .

Short fiction

Collections

(1999) The Expendables. New York: Simon & Schuster. . (1999) . In the Land of Men: Stories. New York: Scribner. . (1996) . Family Terrorists. New York: Scribner. . (2003) . Female Trouble New York: Scribner. . (2006). Some Fun. New York: Scribner. . (2009). Nothing Right. New York: Bloomsbury USA. . (2014). Funny Once. New York: Bloomsbury USA. .

Stories