bio/writing

Michael Dahlie’s first novel, A Gentleman’s Guide to Graceful Living, won the PEN/Hemingway award in 2009, and he received a Whiting Award in 2010.  His short fiction has appeared in journals and magazines including Harper’s, Ploughshares, and Tin House.

Because it’s relevant to his forthcoming novel, he now admits he’s written quite a bit under pen names, including many books for young readers and stories in literary journals.  His novels for young readers have received starred reviews in Publisher’s Weekly, School Library Journal, Booklist, and Kirkus Reviews, and have also appeared on several year-end lists, including The Washington Post’s Top Ten Books For Young Readers 2003. His short stories for “adult readers” under pseudonyms have appeared in places including The Yale Review, Epoch, Harvard Review, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology.

Michael Dahlie’s second novel, The Best of Youth, is due out with W.W. Norton in late January, 2013.  Currently, he’s the Booth Tarkington Writer-in-Residence at Butler University, in Indianapolis, where he lives with his wife, the novelist Allison Lynn, and their four-year-old son, Evan.  Before that, he lived in New York City for 11 years, 6 of which were spent in Brooklyn, a few neighborhoods away from where The Best of Youth is set.