Leopoldine Core (born 1984/1985) is an American poet and short story writer. She has published a poetry collection, '' Veronica Bench'' (2015), and a short story collection, '' When Watched'' (2016). She is a winner of the

Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, ...

in Fiction, as well as a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction and the

PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel The PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction is awarded annually to a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and fu ...

Biography

Core was born in the

East Village, Manhattan The East Village is a neighborhood on the East Side (Manhattan), East Side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, New York. It is roughly defined as the area east of the Bowery and Third Avenue, between 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street on the ...

, and raised in a

railroad apartment A railroad apartment or railroad flat, sometimes referred to as a floor-through apartment, is an apartment with a series of rooms connecting to each other in a line.Sennett, Richard. ''The Conscience of the Eye: The Design and Social Life of Citi ...

nearby

Tompkins Square Park Tompkins Square Park is a public park in the Alphabet City portion of East Village, Manhattan, New York City. The square-shaped park, bounded on the north by East 10th Street, on the east by Avenue B, on the south by East 7th Street, and o ...

. She graduated from

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools ...

, and she planned to be a therapist afterwards before finding herself "too emotional to have that job". She subsequently decided to go into writing. She was a 2012 Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellow and a 2012

Fine Arts Work Center The Fine Arts Work Center is a non-profit enterprise that supports emerging visual artists and writers in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The Work Center was founded in 1968 by a group of American artists and writers to support promising individual ...

Fellow. In 2015, Core published her debut book-length poetry collection '' Veronica Bench''. That same year, she won a

in Fiction. In 2016, Core published her first short story collection, '' When Watched''; the book's nineteen stories focus on "a similar cast of downtown types" similar to Core's own artist friends from her Manhattan upbringing. Steph Eckhardt of '' W'' said that "if 'write what you know' is creative writing’s biggest axiom, Core has become its biggest disciple", while

Alexandra Kleeman Alexandra Kleeman (born 1986) is an American writer. Winner of the 2020 Rome Prize, her work has been reviewed in ''The New York Times'', ''The Guardian'', '' Vanity Fair'', ''Vogue'', and the ''Los Angeles Review of Books''. Early life and edu ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' subsequently drew comparisons with

Jane Bowles Jane Bowles (; born Jane Sydney Auer; February 22, 1917 – May 4, 1973) was an American writer and playwright. Early life Born into a Jewish family in New York City on February 22, 1917, to Sydney Auer (father) and Claire Stajer (mother), Jan ...

William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major Postmodern literature, postmodern author who influen ...

, and

Mary Gaitskill Mary Gaitskill (born November 11, 1954) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. Her work has appeared in ''The New Yorker'', ''Harper's Magazine'', ''Esquire (magazine), Esquire'', ''The Best American Short Stories'' (1993, 20 ...

. Core's story "Hog for Sorrow" was featured in '' The Best American Short Stories 2017''. In 2017, she was honored as one of the

National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 The National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 prize, established in 2006, is an annual honor presented by the National Book Foundation to five authors under the age of 35 who released their debut novel in the previous five years. Honorees are nomina ...

. She was a finalist for the 2017

and the 2017 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction. Core cites Mark Gonzales' ''Non Stop Poetry'',

Nella Larsen Nellallitea "Nella" Larsen (born Nellie Walker; April 13, 1891 – March 30, 1964) was an American novelist. Working as a nurse and a librarian, she published two novels, ''Quicksand'' (1928) and '' Passing'' (1929), and a few short stories. Tho ...

's '' Passing'', and Jenny Zhang's ''Hags'' as her inspirations. Core is dyslexic. Her partner is poet

Eileen Myles Eileen Myles (born December 9, 1949) is an American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. Novelist Dennis Cooper has des ...

Bibliography

*'' Veronica Bench'' (2015) *'' When Watched'' (2016)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Core, Leopoldine Living people Lesbian poets Hunter College alumni American women poets 21st-century American poets American LGBTQ poets Poets from New York City People from the East Village, Manhattan LGBTQ people from New York (state) 21st-century American LGBTQ people