Claire Vaye Watkins

Fiction

Claire Vaye Watkins was one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” and one of Granta's "Best Young American Novelists." She is the author of Gold Fame Citrus and Battleborn, which won the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.

802-440-4452

cvwatkins@bennington.edu

Biography

Claire Vaye Watkins was born and raised in the Mojave Desert. A graduate of the University of Nevada Reno, she earned her MFA from the Ohio State University, where she was a Presidential Fellow. Watkins' stories and essays have appeared in Granta, Tin House, The Paris Review, One Story, Glimmer Train, Best of the West, Best of the Southwest, and The New York Times. A recipient of fellowships from the Sewanee and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences, she was also one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” and one of Granta's "Best Young American Novelists." She is the author of Gold Fame Citrus and Battleborn, which won the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. A Guggenheim Fellow, Watkins is also the co-director of the Mojave School, a free creative writing workshop for teenagers in rural Nevada.