Olivia Clare (Fiction, Poetry) | Conroe, TX

Olivia Clare is the author of a short story collection, Disasters in the First World, from Black Cat/Grove Atlantic. Her novel is forthcoming from Grove Atlantic. She is also the author of a book of poems, The 26-Hour Day (New Issues, 2015). Her awards include a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award (in fiction), the Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship from Colgate University (in poetry), a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and fellowships from the Tin House Writers’ Workshop, the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, and Djerassi Resident Artists Program. In 2014, she won an O. Henry Prize for her first published story, “Pétur.” Her stories have appeared in Granta, Southern Review, n+1, Boston Review, Ecotone, and elsewhere. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Southern Review, London Magazine, FIELD, and elsewhere. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a master’s degree from the University of Southern California, and a PhD in Literature with Creative Dissertation from the University of Nevada, where she was a Black Mountain Institute Fellow.

Books

Blurbs, Press & Reviews

“These insightful stories . . . flout convention and work in mysterious ways. Two in particular―‘Pétur’ and ‘The Visigoths’―will probably be anthologized and taught and cherished for years to come. They’re so well crafted . . . [they] flicker with moments of rare insight and nuance . . . makes me want to pick up whatever Clare publishes next.”
―Andrew Ervin, New York Times Book Review

“Lyrical and elegiac . . . Clare’s writing sparkles with unexpected word . . . Her stories unfold in wonderfully astonishing turns . . . Tender yet occasionally biting, Disasters in the First World ekes narrative poetry out of tragedy . . . Clare writes compassionately and unflinchingly about mental suffering.”
―Amy Brady, Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“If Karen Russell wrote realistic fiction . . . everyday people grappling with really big things . . . Disasters big and small about modern life and the difficulties of being a person connecting with other people, doing the right thing.”
―Rebecca Joines Schinsky, Book Riot

“Clare’s fiction has a spryness and a wryness one could describe as Barthelme-esque, without so much of DB’s arch, sometimes off-putting minimalism. Clare’s fiction has closely observed sympathy that could be described as Munro-esque, with a tick-tock contemporaneity that evokes early ‘80s Beatty. What we’re getting at is that there’re a lot of ins and outs to this case.”
―Tex Kerschen, Houston Post

“Clare’s debut short story collection explores the lives of varied characters―lovers, family, and tenants; the links they forge with others; and the odd, confounding worlds they inhabit . . . In these thoughtful tales, Clare, winner of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and an O. Henry Prize, presents characters who, instead of begging for sympathy, seem to desire clarity.”
―Leah Strauss, Booklist

“Intimate and incisive . . . Clare’s characters are believable in their frailty and vulnerability, and the clarity and strength of her voice gives these stories a lingering power.”
―Publishers Weekly

“Olivia Clare is pure literary dynamite. In these stories, humor and dread oscillate at sonic speed, and the worldliness of the sensibility never negates its vulnerability. Clare writes with Carveresque clarity and bite and an elegance all her own. A bravura debut.”
—Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black

“Olivia Clare’s debut collection will surprise you with its poetic weirdness, its dark confidence. The ‘disasters’ in these stories are tragically indefinite, fissures in the lives of the characters, whom Clare brings to life with humor, wisdom, and brutal honesty.”
—Vu Tran, author of Dragonfish

“The ordinary is transformed in the crucible of Olivia Clare’s mind. These stories are artful and strange, both otherworldly and gloriously earthbound. They’ll wend their way into your consciousness with stealth.”
―Lauren Acampora, author of The Wonder Garden

“The stories in Disasters in the First World are broad, clear, wild, caring, evocative, deceptively simple, clever without resorting to boring cynicism, deeply-affected and affecting, and rendered expertly with admirably few strokes. Sister to missing sister, vaulted son to mother, the characters who haunt these pages are marked in their depths by their profound and painful stumblings toward connection. They will stay with you for a very, very long time.”
—Marie-Helene Bertino, author of 2 A.M. at the Cat’s Pajamas

“Graceful and understated, the stories in Disasters in the First World probe the strangeness in the ordinary. Olivia Clare’s language is insightful, shimmering, and entirely her own.”
—Kirstin Valdez Quade, author of Night at the Fiestas

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