Authors Similar like Mona Simpson

Claire Messud

Claire Messud is an American novelist and literature and creative writing professor. She is best known as the author of the novel The Emperor's Children (2006).

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John Knowles

John Knowles was an American novelist best known for A Separate Peace (1959).

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Sue Monk Kidd was raised in the small town of Sylvester, Georgia, a place that deeply influenced the writing of her first novel The Secret Life of Bees. She graduated from Texas Christian University in 1970 and later took creative writing courses at Emory University and Anderson College, as well as studying at Sewanee, Bread Loaf, and other writers’ conferences. In 2016, TCU conferred on her an honorary doctor of letters degree. She was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors in 2011 and into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2022.

Her book When the Heart Waits, published by Harper San Francisco in 1990 has become a touchstone on contemplative spirituality. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, also published by Harper in 1996,

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John Berendt

John Berendt is an American author and journalist best known for his best-selling nonfiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. Blending true crime and vivid portraits of Savannah, Georgia, the book became a cultural phenomenon, spending a record-breaking 216 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and inspiring Clint Eastwood’s 1997 film adaptation.
Born in Syracuse, New York, Berendt studied English at Harvard University, where he worked on the Harvard Lampoon. He went on to serve as associate editor of Esquire and editor of New York magazine, and later wrote a long-running Esquire column. His years in Savannah, beginning in 1985, gave him intimate access to th

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Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson was born in York and now lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and she has been a critically acclaimed international bestselling author ever since.

She is the author of a collection of short stories, Not the End of the World, and of the critically acclaimed novels Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Case Histories, and One Good Turn.

Case Histories introduced her readers to Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, and won the Saltire Book of the Year Award and the Prix Westminster.

When Will There Be Good News? was voted Richard & Judy Book Best Read of the Year. After Case Histories and One Good Turn, it was her third novel to fea

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Allegra Goodman

Hello, Good Readers!

I have a new novel "Isola" out now. I'm excited for you to read it! You can order it here:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...

"Isola" is based on the true story of a young woman who sails from France to the New World in 1542 and is marooned on an island in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

My novel "Sam" is in paperback.

"Sam" is about a young girl's exuberance, wonder, and ambition as she comes of age.

Jenna Bush Hager picked "Sam" for her Today Show book club and said, "Sam is about as perfect of a coming-of-age story as I have ever read."

About me: I was born in Brooklyn, but I grew up in Honolulu where I did not have to wear shoes in school until fifth grade.

I now live in Cambridge, MA and I own boots. In addition to wr

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Jenny Offill

Jenny Offill is an American author born in Massachusetts. Her first novel Last Things was published in 1999 was a New York Times Notable book and a finalist for the L.A Times First Book Award.

She is also the co-editor with Elissa Schappell of two anthologies of essays and the author of several children's books She teaches in the MFA programs at Brooklyn College, Columbia University and Queens University.

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John Hart

JOHN HART is the author of six New York Times bestsellers, and of THE UNWILLING, which will be released on February 2, 2021. The only author in history to win the best novel Edgar Award for consecutive novels, Hart has also won the Barry Award, the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Award for Fiction, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and the North Carolina Award for Literature. His novels have been translated into thirty language and can be found in over seventy countries. “My only real dream,” John declares, “has been to write well and to be published well.”

He lives in Virginia with his wife, two daughters, and four dogs.

There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads.

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Jill Ciment

Jill Ciment was born in Montreal, Canada. She is the author of Small Claims, a collection of short stories and novellas; The Law of Falling Bodies, Teeth of the Dog, The Tattoo Artist, and Heroic Measures, novels; and Half a Life, a memoir. She has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts, a NEA Japan Fellowship Prize, two New York State Fellowships for the Arts, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Ciment is a professor at the University of Florida. She lives with her husband, Arnold Mesches, in Gainesville, Florida and Brooklyn, New York.

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Laura Lippman

Since Laura Lippman’s debut, she has been recognized as a distinctive voice in mystery fiction and named one of the “essential” crime writers of the last 100 years. Stephen King called her “special, even extraordinary,” and Gillian Flynn wrote, “She is simply a brilliant novelist.” Her books have won most of the major awards in her field and been translated into more than twenty-five languages. She lives in Baltimore and New Orleans with her teenager.

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Amy Bloom

Amy Bloom is the New York Times bestselling author of White Houses; Come to Me, a National Book Award finalist; A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; Love Invents Us; Normal; Away; Where the God of Love Hangs Out; and Lucky Us. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Short Stories, The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction, and many other anthologies. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, O: The Oprah Magazine, Slate, Tin House, and Salon, among other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award.

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Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín FRSL, is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and poet. Tóibín is currently Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University in Manhattan and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester.

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Idra Novey

Idra Novey is the author of TAKE WHAT YOU NEED, a New York Times Notable Book of 2023 and one of The New Yorker's Best Books of the Year. The novel is set in the Allegheny Highlands of Appalachia where parts of her family have lived for over a century.

Her earlier novels include THOSE WHO KNEW and WAYS TO DISAPPEAR, a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize for First Fiction. She's written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Her fiction and poetry have been translated into a dozen languages. Her new book of poems, SOON AND WHOLLY, will be published in 2024.

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Attica Locke

Attica Locke is a writer whose first novel, Black Water Rising, was nominated for a 2010 Edgar Award, a 2010 NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was shortlisted for an Orange Prize in the UK.

Attica is also a screenwriter who has written movie and television scripts for Paramount, Warner Bros, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, HBO, Dreamworks and Silver Pictures. She was also a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmakers Lab and is a graduate of Northwestern University.

A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.

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Liz Moore

Liz Moore is the author of the novels THE WORDS OF EVERY SONG (Broadway Books, 2007), HEFT (W.W. Norton, 2012), THE UNSEEN WORLD (W.W. Norton, 2016), and the New York Times-bestselling Long Bright River (Riverhead, 2019). A winner of the Rome Prize in Literature, she lives in Philadelphia with her family, and teaches in the M.F.A. program in Creative Writing at Temple University.

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C. Toni Graham

C. Toni Graham is the author of the delightful illustrated children's book "Gabby Giggles". Her YA novel, "Crossroads and the Himalayan Crystals" is the first installment of her debut trilogy. The second release in the series, "Crossroads and the Dominion of Four" is now available at all retailers. This fantasy saga is about four teenagers transported to the Otherworld. Here the teens are thrust into a magical world where they must defeat an evil druid and determine if other magical beings are allies or enemies as they face danger and challenges in their quest for answers. This fast paced fantasy is fueled with mystery, surprising plots and memorable characters. Crossroads is an extremely well-written story for readers of all ages.
www.cross

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Kim Cross

Kim Cross is a New York Times best-selling author and journalist known for meticulously reported narrative nonfiction. A full-time freelance writer, she has bylines in the New York Times, Nieman Storyboard, Outside, Bicycling, Garden & Gun, CNN.com, ESPN.com, and USA Today. Her work has been recognized in “Best of” lists by the the New York Times, the Columbia Journalism Review, The Sunday Longread, Longform, Apple News Audio, and Best American Sports Writing. She teaches Feature Writing for Harvard Extension School and lives in Idaho.

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Imbolo Mbue

Imbolo Mbue is a native of Limbe, Cameroon. She holds a B.S. from Rutgers University and an M.A. from Columbia University. A resident of the United States for over a decade, she lives in New York City. BEHOLD THE DREAMERS is her first novel.

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Kyle Lucia Wu

Kyle Lucia Wu is the author of the novel Win Me Something (Tin House Books 2021), and the co-author of An Asian American A to Z: A Children's Guide to Our History, out May 2nd, 2023 from Haymarket Books.

She is the Deputy Director at Kundiman, a nonprofit dedicated to nurturing writers and readers of Asian American literature. She is a senior editor at Joyland, and teaches writing at Fordham University and The New School. She has received the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Margins fellowship and residencies from the Byrdcliffe Colony, the Millay Colony, Plympton’s Writing Downtown Residency, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center.

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Charlotte Wood

Charlotte Wood is the author of six novels and two books of non-fiction. Her new novel is The Weekend.

Her previous novel, The Natural Way of Things, won the 2016 Stella Prize, the 2016 Indie Book of the Year and Novel of the Year, was joint winner of the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction.

Her non-fiction works include The Writer’s Room, a collection of interviews with authors about the creative process, and Love & Hunger, a book about cooking. Her features and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Literary Hub, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Saturday Paper among other publications. In 2019 she was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant services to literature, and was named one of the Aus

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Rob Franklin

Born and raised in Atlanta, Rob Franklin is a writer of fiction and poetry, and a cofounder of Art for Black Lives. A Kimbilio Fiction Fellow and finalist for the New England Review Emerging Writer Award, he has published work in New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Rumpus among others. Franklin lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches writing at the School of Visual Arts. Great Black Hope is his first novel.

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Justin Ho

Justin Ho is a writer who grew up in Hawaii but spent most of his time in online worlds. Now a bit more grounded, he’s currently pursuing traditional publishing, keeping up with YA releases, and learning Korean (code for watching too much TOMORROW X TOGETHER and BTS content).

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Joshua Ferris

Joshua Ferris is the author of novels Then We Came to the End, The Unnamed and To Rise Again at a Decent Hour as well as a story collection, The Dinner Party. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and the PEN/Hemingway Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize. He was named one of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40" writers in 2010. He lives in Hudson, New York with his wife and son.

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Christine Higdon

Christine’s latest novel, Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue has been nominated for the 2025 Forest of Reading Evergreen Award!

The novel is immersed in the complex political and social realities of the 1920s and, not so ironically, of the 2020s: love, sex, desire, police corruption, abortion, addiction, and women wanting more. Much more.

Elegant and witty, with a compelling cast of characters, this novel is a tender account of love that cannot be acknowledged, of loss and regret, risk and defiance, abiding friendship, and the powerful bonds of chosen family.

The Very Marrow of Our Bones won the 2018 Foreword INDIES Editor’s Choice Prize–Fiction. Christine has been published in journals and has won a National Magazine Award and been long-lis

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Martha Southgate

Martha Southgate is the author of four novels. Her newest, The Taste of Salt, is available in bookstores and online now. Her previous novel, Third Girl from the Left won the Best Novel of the Year award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was shortlisted for the PEN/Beyond Margins Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy award. Her novel The Fall of Rome received the 2003 Alex Award from the American Library Association and was named one of the best novels of 2002 by Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post. She is also the author of Another Way to Dance, which won the Coretta Scott King Genesis Award for Best First Novel. She received a 2002 New York Foundation for the Arts grant and has received fellowships from the Ma

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Isabel Curtis

Author of Before Life Happened, in the process of writing a sequel, and around other 47 books.

When I'm not writing, I read. And in my spare time I buy too many books and more bookshelves. I'll need a bigger house pretty soon.

I love travelling, and when I pack my bags it's 98% books and 2% clothes.

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Dale M. Kushner

Dale M. Kushner grew up in New Jersey and moved to the Midwest to study at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She is a recipient of a Wisconsin Arts Board Grant in the Literary Arts and has been honored by a fellowship to the Wurlitzer Foundation, The Ragdale Foundation, and the Fetzer Institute as a participant of their first Writers’ Conference on Compassion and Forgiveness. Her work has been widely published in literary journals including IMAGE, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Salmagundi, Witness, Fifth Wednesday and elsewhere. Her most recent poetry collection More Alive Than Lions Roaring was a finalist for the May Swenson Poetry Award at Utah State Press and The Prairie Schooner Book Competition. In 2010 she was nominated for a Pushcart

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Jonathan Dee

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Jonathan Dee is the author of six novels. He is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, a frequent contributor to Harper's, and a former senior editor of The Paris Review. He teaches in the graduate writing programs at Columbia University and the New School.

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David Wong Louie

David Wong Louie (雷祖威; pinyin: Léi Zǔwēi) is an American writer of novels and short stories. His works include "Pangs of Love" a collection of short stories, and the novel "The Barbarians are Coming." He co-edited "A Contemporary Asian American Anthology" with Marilyn Chin. He teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles.

He received an M.F.A. (Master of Fine Arts) in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa in 1981 and a B.A. from Vassar College in 1977.

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Jo Vraca

Jo Vraca is a fiction writer based in Melbourne, Australia. Born in a small Sicily village to a seamstress and a farmer, she grew up in Australia after her family immigrated in 1971.

Jo wrote her first book when she was 12, before computers. She burned it without reading a word of the manuscript. After a decade as a music and entertainment journalist, Jo returned to her fiction roots and had a short story published in the anthology "Behind the Front Fence" through The Five Mile Press. In 2014 she published her first collection of short stories, Girls, and in 2015, her first novel, Floating Upstream, a coming-of-age tale set in 1970s rural Australia.

Jo likes to think of herself as a born liar, with writing the most likely outlet for her sto

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Elizabeth Graver

Elizabeth Graver’s novel, Kantika, is a multigenerational saga that moves from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana and New York, exploring displacement, endurance, and family as home. Inspired by the life story of the author’s maternal grandmother Rebecca, Kantika was selected by the New York Times as a 2023 Best Historical Novel and Notable Book of the Year, and by NPR as a Best Book of 2023 and translated into Turkish and German. Kantika was awarded a National Jewish Book Award, the Edward Lewis Wallant Prize, the Julia Ward Howe Prize and the Massachusetts Book Award.
Elizabeth Graver's previous novel, The End of the Point, set in a summer community on Buzzard’s Bay from 1942 to 1999, was on the long list for the 2013 National Book Award an

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Nancy Hale

Nancy L. Hale has a master’s degree in education. For over twenty years, she worked as a licensed mental health counselor specializing on grief and trauma. She lives with her loving husband and two wheaten terriers, Maggie and Molly, in Wilbraham, Massachusetts. She takes pleasure in talking with God and reveling in nature while she works in her gardens and watches wild birds in the yard.

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Mona Simpson

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