Celebrating the publication of Courtney Zoffness' new memoir, Spilt Milk, published by McSweeney's.
What role does a mother play in raising thoughtful, generous children? In her literary debut, internationally award-winning writer Courtney Zoffness considers what we inherit from generations past--biologically, culturally, spiritually--and what we pass on to our children. Spilt Milk is an intimate, bracing, and beautiful exploration of vulnerability and culpability. Zoffness relives her childhood anxiety disorder as she witnesses it manifest in her firstborn; endures brazen sexual advances by a student in her class; grapples with the implications of her young son's cop obsession; and challenges her Jewish faith. Where is the line between privacy and secrecy? How do the stories we tell inform who we become? These powerful, dynamic essays herald a vital new voice.
Courtney Zoffness won the 2018 Sunday Times Short Story Award, the most valuable international prize for short fiction, amid entries from 38 countries. She joins a winners list that includes Junot Díaz, Anthony Doerr, and Yiyun Li. (Read more about this here and here.) Other honors include an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, the Arts & Letters Creative Nonfiction Prize, a Bread Loaf Writers Conference scholarship, and two residency fellowships from MacDowell. Her writing has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including the Paris Review Daily, Longreads, The Southern Review, The Rumpus, and No Tokens, she had Notable essays in Best American Essays 2018 & 2019. Her literary debut, SPILT MILK, is forthcoming from McSweeney's.
Courtney holds graduate degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Arizona, and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She has taught at nearly a dozen institutions, including Yale University and the University of Freiburg (Germany). Currently she directs the Creative Writing Program at Drew University and is a faculty member at Writing Workshops in Greece. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
Rita Bullwinkel is the author of the story collection Belly Up, which won the 2018 Believer Book Award. Bullwinkel's writing has been published in Tin House, The White Review, Conjunctions, BOMB, Vice, NOON, and Guernica. She is a recipient of grants and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Brown University, Vanderbilt University, Hawthornden Castle, and The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Both her fiction and translation have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. She is an Editor at Large for McSweeney's and a Contributing Editor for NOON. She lives in San Francisco and teaches at the California College of the Arts.
Mat Johnson is the author of the novels Loving Day, Pym, Drop, and Hunting in Harlem, the nonfiction novella The Great Negro Plot, and the comic books Incognegro and Dark Rain. He is a recipient of the American Book Award, the United States Artist James Baldwin Fellowship, The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature. He is a Professor at the University of Oregon.
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What role does a mother play in raising thoughtful, generous children? In her literary debut, internationally award-winning writer Courtney Zoffness considers what we inherit from generations past--biologically, culturally, spiritually--and what we pass on to our children. Spilt Milk is an intimate, bracing, and beautiful exploration of vulnerability and culpability. Zoffness relives her childhood anxiety disorder as she witnesses it manifest in her firstborn; endures brazen sexual advances by a student in her class; grapples with the implications of her young son's cop obsession; and challenges her Jewish faith. Where is the line between privacy and secrecy? How do the stories we tell inform who we become? These powerful, dynamic essays herald a vital new voice.
Courtney Zoffness won the 2018 Sunday Times Short Story Award, the most valuable international prize for short fiction, amid entries from 38 countries. She joins a winners list that includes Junot Díaz, Anthony Doerr, and Yiyun Li. (Read more about this here and here.) Other honors include an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, the Arts & Letters Creative Nonfiction Prize, a Bread Loaf Writers Conference scholarship, and two residency fellowships from MacDowell. Her writing has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including the Paris Review Daily, Longreads, The Southern Review, The Rumpus, and No Tokens, she had Notable essays in Best American Essays 2018 & 2019. Her literary debut, SPILT MILK, is forthcoming from McSweeney's.
Courtney holds graduate degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Arizona, and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She has taught at nearly a dozen institutions, including Yale University and the University of Freiburg (Germany). Currently she directs the Creative Writing Program at Drew University and is a faculty member at Writing Workshops in Greece. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
Rita Bullwinkel is the author of the story collection Belly Up, which won the 2018 Believer Book Award. Bullwinkel's writing has been published in Tin House, The White Review, Conjunctions, BOMB, Vice, NOON, and Guernica. She is a recipient of grants and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Brown University, Vanderbilt University, Hawthornden Castle, and The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Both her fiction and translation have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. She is an Editor at Large for McSweeney's and a Contributing Editor for NOON. She lives in San Francisco and teaches at the California College of the Arts.
Mat Johnson is the author of the novels Loving Day, Pym, Drop, and Hunting in Harlem, the nonfiction novella The Great Negro Plot, and the comic books Incognegro and Dark Rain. He is a recipient of the American Book Award, the United States Artist James Baldwin Fellowship, The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature. He is a Professor at the University of Oregon.
Celebrating the publication of Courtney Zoffness' new memoir, Spilt Milk, published by McSweeney's.
What role does a mother play in raising thoughtful, generous children? In her literary debut, internationally award-winning writer Courtney Zoffness considers what we inherit from generations past--biologically, culturally, spiritually--and what we pass on to our children. Spilt Milk is an intimate, bracing, and beautiful exploration of vulnerability and culpability. Zoffness relives her childhood anxiety disorder as she witnesses it manifest in her firstborn; endures brazen sexual advances by a student in her class; grapples with the implications of her young son's cop obsession; and challenges her Jewish faith. Where is the line between privacy and secrecy? How do the stories we tell inform who we become? These powerful, dynamic essays herald a vital new voice.
Courtney Zoffness won the 2018 Sunday Times Short Story Award, the most valuable international prize for short fiction, amid entries from 38 countries. She joins a winners list that includes Junot Díaz, Anthony Doerr, and Yiyun Li. (Read more about this here and here.) Other honors include an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, the Arts & Letters Creative Nonfiction Prize, a Bread Loaf Writers Conference scholarship, and two residency fellowships from MacDowell. Her writing has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including the Paris Review Daily, Longreads, The Southern Review, The Rumpus, and No Tokens, she had Notable essays in Best American Essays 2018 & 2019. Her literary debut, SPILT MILK, is forthcoming from McSweeney's.
Courtney holds graduate degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Arizona, and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She has taught at nearly a dozen institutions, including Yale University and the University of Freiburg (Germany). Currently she directs the Creative Writing Program at Drew University and is a faculty member at Writing Workshops in Greece. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
Rita Bullwinkel is the author of the story collection Belly Up, which won the 2018 Believer Book Award. Bullwinkel's writing has been published in Tin House, The White Review, Conjunctions, BOMB, Vice, NOON, and Guernica. She is a recipient of grants and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Brown University, Vanderbilt University, Hawthornden Castle, and The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Both her fiction and translation have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. She is an Editor at Large for McSweeney's and a Contributing Editor for NOON. She lives in San Francisco and teaches at the California College of the Arts.
Mat Johnson is the author of the novels Loving Day, Pym, Drop, and Hunting in Harlem, the nonfiction novella The Great Negro Plot, and the comic books Incognegro and Dark Rain. He is a recipient of the American Book Award, the United States Artist James Baldwin Fellowship, The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature. He is a Professor at the University of Oregon.
read more
What role does a mother play in raising thoughtful, generous children? In her literary debut, internationally award-winning writer Courtney Zoffness considers what we inherit from generations past--biologically, culturally, spiritually--and what we pass on to our children. Spilt Milk is an intimate, bracing, and beautiful exploration of vulnerability and culpability. Zoffness relives her childhood anxiety disorder as she witnesses it manifest in her firstborn; endures brazen sexual advances by a student in her class; grapples with the implications of her young son's cop obsession; and challenges her Jewish faith. Where is the line between privacy and secrecy? How do the stories we tell inform who we become? These powerful, dynamic essays herald a vital new voice.
Courtney Zoffness won the 2018 Sunday Times Short Story Award, the most valuable international prize for short fiction, amid entries from 38 countries. She joins a winners list that includes Junot Díaz, Anthony Doerr, and Yiyun Li. (Read more about this here and here.) Other honors include an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, the Arts & Letters Creative Nonfiction Prize, a Bread Loaf Writers Conference scholarship, and two residency fellowships from MacDowell. Her writing has appeared in various journals and anthologies, including the Paris Review Daily, Longreads, The Southern Review, The Rumpus, and No Tokens, she had Notable essays in Best American Essays 2018 & 2019. Her literary debut, SPILT MILK, is forthcoming from McSweeney's.
Courtney holds graduate degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Arizona, and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She has taught at nearly a dozen institutions, including Yale University and the University of Freiburg (Germany). Currently she directs the Creative Writing Program at Drew University and is a faculty member at Writing Workshops in Greece. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
Rita Bullwinkel is the author of the story collection Belly Up, which won the 2018 Believer Book Award. Bullwinkel's writing has been published in Tin House, The White Review, Conjunctions, BOMB, Vice, NOON, and Guernica. She is a recipient of grants and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Brown University, Vanderbilt University, Hawthornden Castle, and The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Both her fiction and translation have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. She is an Editor at Large for McSweeney's and a Contributing Editor for NOON. She lives in San Francisco and teaches at the California College of the Arts.
Mat Johnson is the author of the novels Loving Day, Pym, Drop, and Hunting in Harlem, the nonfiction novella The Great Negro Plot, and the comic books Incognegro and Dark Rain. He is a recipient of the American Book Award, the United States Artist James Baldwin Fellowship, The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature. He is a Professor at the University of Oregon.
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