Looker (Sims) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—?
• Where—Richmond, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., College of William and Mary; M.F.A., University of Washington
• Awards—Alberta Prize from Fence Books
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York


Laura Sims is an American poet and fiction writer, whose debut novel Looker (2019) sparked a bidding war, resulting in a major deal with Scribner. The book follows the spiraling descent of a woman obsessed—with the end of her marriage, with her inability to have a child, with her infuriatingly bourgeois Brooklyn neighborhood, and with her movie star neighbor.

Poetry
Prior to her novel, Sims published four books of poetry: Staying Alive (2016), My god is this a man (2014), Stranger (2009), and Practice, Restraint (2005). In 2014, she compiled and edited Fare Forward: Letters from David Markson. She has published five poetry chapbooks, including POST- (2011).

Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Aufgabe, Black Clock, Black Warrior Review, Colorado Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Crayon, and Denver Quarterly, among others.

She has published book reviews and essays in Boston Review, New England Review, Rain Taxi, and The Review of Contemporary Fiction.

Education
Sims is a graduate of the College of William and Mary. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington. She is a professor of creative writing, literature and composition who currently teaches at New York University.

She has been a featured writer for Harriet, the Poetry Foundation's blog, and she is a co-editor of Instance Press with poets Elizabeth Robinson, Beth Anderson, and Susanne Dyckman. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Honors
2005 - Alberta Prize for Practice, Restraint from Fence Books
2006 - Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship from the Japan-US Friendship Commission
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia.)