Sarah Gerkensmeyer (Fiction) | Greencastle, IN

Sarah Gerkensmeyer’s story collection, What You Are Now Enjoying, was selected by Stewart O’Nan as winner of the 2012 Autumn House Press Fiction Prize, longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and chosen as winner of Late Night Library’s Debut-litzer Prize. A Pushcart Prize nominee for both fiction and poetry and a finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction and the Italo Calvino Prize for Fabulist Fiction, Sarah has received scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Ragdale, Grub Street, SAFTA’s Firefly Farms, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her stories and poetry have appeared in American Short Fiction, Guernica, The New Guard, The Massachusetts Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, B O D Y, Hobart, and Cream City Review, among others. Her story “Ramona” was featured in a Huffington Post piece on flash fiction and also selected by Lily Hoang for the 2014 Best of the Net Anthology. Sarah was the 2012-13 Pen Parentis Fellow. She received her MFA in fiction from Cornell University and now lives and writes in her home state of Indiana, where she is a finalist for the 2016 Indiana Authors Award in the emerging category.

Books

Blurbs, Press & Reviews

“The smart, funky, well-turned stories in What You Are Now Enjoying keep the reader not just guessing and leaning forward but in a perpetual state of wonder. Sarah Gerkensmeyer is an original, a sneaky sorceress of a storyteller.”
—Stewart O’Nan, The Odds: A Love Story, Songs for the Missing, Last Night at the Lobster, Snow Angels, among many others

“Gerkensmeyer’s voice is legitimately one-of-a-kind, and What You Are Now Enjoying is the work of a deviously entertaining mastermind. Just when you peg this book as delightfully eerie and coy, it will serenade you with bursts of lush humor, real sorrow, and honest warmth. A hypnotic debut from a young writer who’s going to be around for a long, long time.”
–Patrick Somerville, This Bright River, The Universe in Miniature in Miniature, The Cradle, Trouble

“These stories are dark and fantastic, full of danger and humor and heart. Gerkensmeyer’s world is distinct and vibrant and haunting–filled with characters whose longing rings with truth and familiarity, inducing in her reader a physical ache. What a remarkable and unforgettable collection.”
–Aryn Kyle, Boys and Girls Like You and Me, The God of Animals

Additional Commentary

Review in Hayden’s Ferry

Review in Colorado Review

Review on The Open End

Review in Necessary Fiction

Review on Late Night Library

Review on Literary Mama

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