Anthony Marra (born 1984) is an American fiction writer. Marra has won numerous awards for his short stories, as well as his first novel, '' A Constellation of Vital Phenomena,'' which was a ''New York Times'' best seller.

Personal life

Marra was born in

Washington, D.C ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

., attended high school in Bethesda, Maryland, and has lived in Eastern Europe, though he now resides in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

Education

Marra attended the

Landon School Landon School is a private, college preparatory school for boys in grades 3–12, with an enrollment of approximately 680 students, in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. Background Paul Landon Banfield and his wife, Mary Lee, fo ...

Bethesda, Maryland Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland. It is located just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House (1820, rebuilt 1849), which in ...

before attending the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

where he earned with bachelor's degree in creative writing. He received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the

Iowa Writer's Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Wri ...

. Between 2011 and 2013, he was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, where he also taught as the

Jones Lecturer The Jones Lectureship at Stanford University is a two-year teaching fellowship available to previous Stegner Fellows. The Lectureship is available in fiction and poetry and is intended to provide writers with the time and support needed to complete ...

in Fiction. Marra has also received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

Writing

Marra has contributed pieces to ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', ''

Narrative Magazine ''Narrative'' is an online magazine and website that is dedicated to advancing the literary arts in the digital age and publishes fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry, and art. It was founded in 2003. History and profile Founded in 2003, the l ...

'', ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and ma ...

,'' ''

The Rumpus ''The Rumpus'' is an online literary magazine launched on January 20, 2009. The site features interviews, book reviews, essays, comics, and critiques of creative culture as well as original fiction and poetry. The site runs two subscription-base ...

,'' ''

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 ...

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

,'' and ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...

.''

Accolades

Bibliography

Essays

*
Giving Up
" published July 7, 2011 in ''

'' *
When a Sentence Changes Your Life—Then Changes Its Own Meaning
" published May 7, 2013 in ''

Short stories

*
Chechnya
" published in 2009 in ''

'' *"The Wolves of Bilaya Forest," May 31, 2012 by ''

'' *"The Lion's Den" (2019)
Lipari
" published April 25, 2017 in ''

Contributor

* ''xo Orpheus: Fifty New Myths'', published September 24, 2013 by

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Mariner Books Mariner Books, originally an imprint of HMH Books, was established in 1997 as a publisher of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry in trade paperback. Mariner is also the publisher of the Harvest backlist, formerly published by Harcourt Brace/Harcou ...

Books

* '' A Constellation of Vital Phenomena'', published May 7, 2013 by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

* '' The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories'', published October 6, 2015 by

Hogarth Press The Hogarth Press is a book publishing imprint of Penguin Random House that was founded as an independent company in 1917 by British authors Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in Richmond (then in Surrey and n ...

*''Mercury Pictures Presents'', published August 2, 2022 by

References

External links

Anthony Marra (Official Website)Profile at The Whiting Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marra, Anthony American male writers 1984 births Living people University of Southern California alumni Stanford University Department of English faculty Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Stegner Fellows Writers from Oakland, California Writers from Maryland Writers from Washington (state) Writers from Washington, D.C.