Gold Fame Citrus (Watkins) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—1984
• Where—Bishop, California, USA
• Raised—Mojave Desert (in California and Nevada)
• Education—B.A., University of Nevado-Reno; M.F.A., Ohio State University
• Awards—(below)
• Currently—teaches at the University of Michigan


Claire Vaye Watkins is an American author, whose 2012 story collection, Battleborn, swept nearly every award for short fiction.

Born in Bishop, California, Watkins was raised in the Mojave Desert—first in Tecopa, California, and then across the state line in Pahrump, Nevada. A graduate of the University of Nevada Reno, Claire earned her MFA from the Ohio State University, where she was a Presidential Fellow.

Writing
Her stories and essays have appeared in Granta, One Story, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Best of the West 2011, New Stories from the Southwest 2013, New York Times and elsewhere. A recipient of fellowships from the Sewanee and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences, Claire was also one of the National Book Foundation’s "5 Under 35."

In 2015 she released her debut novel Gold Fame Citrus to wide accclaim, praised for its originality and masterful writing.

Awards
Her collection of short stories, Battleborn, 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, Claire is on the faculty of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. She is also the co-director, with Derek Palacio, of the Mojave School, a free creative writing workshop for teenagers in rural Nevada. (Adapted from the author's website.)