Helen Phillips (born 1981) is an American novelist. She is a winner of the Story Prize.

Biography

She was born in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. When she was a child, she was affected by

alopecia Hair loss, also known as alopecia or baldness, refers to a loss of hair from part of the head or body. Typically at least the head is involved. The severity of hair loss can vary from a small area to the entire body. Inflammation or scar ...

, and by the age of 11, she had lost all of her hair. She graduated from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

in 2004, and received her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Brooklyn College (CUNY) in 2007. She moved to Brooklyn with a position as associate professor at Brooklyn College with her husband, the artist Adam Douglas Thompson, and their children. Her debut was the story collection ''And Yet They Were Happy.'' It was named a notable collection by

The Story Prize The Story Prize is an annual book award established in 2004 that honors the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Each of two runners-up receives $5,000. Eligible books must be written in English and first p ...

. In 2013, she wrote a children's adventure novel. She followed with her first adult novel, ''The Beautiful Bureaucrat.''

Awards and recognition

*Finalist in the 2009 Leapfrog Press Global Fiction Prize Contes

* Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, 2009 *Iowa Review Nonfiction Award. *DIAGRAM Innovative Fiction Award, (date needed) * Italo Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction *Longlist:

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

for ''The Need''.

Selected works

Novels

*''The Beautiful Bureaucrat'' (2015), which was named a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' notable book in 2015. *''The Need'' (2019)

Short story collections

*''And Yet They Were Happy'' (2011), winner of The Story Prize, finalist in the Leapfrog Press Global Fiction Prize Contest (2009), published by Leapfrog Press *''Some Possible Solutions'' (2016) received the 2017 John Gardner Fiction Book Award.

Children's books

* ''Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green'' (2012) was published internationally as ''Upside Down in the Jungle''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Helen Living people American women short story writers American women novelists 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American short story writers Novelists from Colorado Yale University alumni 1981 births Brooklyn College alumni Brooklyn College faculty