Laurie Sheck is the author of the hybrid novels Island of the Mad and A Monster's Notes, which was chosen by Entertainment Weekly as one of the 10 Best Fictions of the Year and longlisted for the Dublin Impac International Fiction Prize. She is also the author of five books of poems, one of which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her work had appeared widely in such publications as the New Yorker, Paris Review, Granta, and the New York Times. A 2023 recipient of a Literature Award from the Creative Capital Foundation, she has also been a Guggenheim fellow, as well as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard and at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Born in the Bronx, she has taught at Princeton, Rutgers, and Columbia University and is currently on the MFA Writing Faculty at the New School. She lives in New York City.