Falconer (Czapnik) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1978-79 (?)
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Hunter College
• Currently—lives in New York City


Dana Czapnik is the debut author of the 2019 novel, The Falconer. She was born and raised in New York City and, when younger, was obsessed with basket ball like her heroine Lucy Adler—though not as good she claims. "I was just so-so," Czapnik told an interviewer at The Rumpus.

To begin building her writer's chops, Czapnik spent her early adult years as a freelance fact-checker, researcher and journalist in sports—she wrote about girls' field hockey, Nascar, and Woman's college basketball. Later she worked in public relations and marketing for a number of professional sports organizations, finally ending up at the U.S. Tennis Association. She wrote athlete profiles, as well as game reports and match summaries. Her challenge in sports writing was always to keep the same-old-same-old fresh, descriptive, and engaging—a challenge she believes helped with writing her novel.

In addition to receiving a Hertog Fellowship from Hunter College, where she earned her M.F.A., Czapnik has been the recipient of two others: an Emerging Writers Fellowship from the Center for Fiction in 2017, and an NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Fiction from The New York Foundation for the Arts in 2018.

Czapnik lives with her husband and son in New York. (Adapted from online sources.)