About

Lara Tupper is the author of three books: Amphibians, a short story collection (Leapfrog Global Fiction Award winner; Leapfrog Press), Off Island, a fictional re-imagining of Paul Gauguin's travels (finalist, Housatonic Book Award; Encircle) and A Thousand and One Nights (Harcourt and Untreed Reads), an autobiographical novel about singers at sea. With filmmaker Greg Eismin she co-wrote the screenplay adaptation for A Thousand and One Nights. She received a 2022 Martha Boschen Porter Fund Award for Writers and her recent fiction was a finalist for the Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music In Literature, the UNO Press Publishing Lab and the Orison Books Fiction Prize. A graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, she taught at Rutgers University for many years and now presents writing workshops via Swift Ink Stories, a platform for creative expression. She is also a jazz/folk singer who has traveled the world; her latest album is This Dance.

Other Works

  • A Thousand and One Nights, a novel

    Untreed Reads, 2015 and Harcourt, 2007
  • Off Island, a novel

    Encircle, winter 2020
  • At the Center (novel excerpt), Arlington Literary Journal

    2023
  • "Good Neighbors" (short story), Dogwood Journal

    2019
  • "The Mission Bell" (short story), The Ghost Story

    2019
  • "Amphibians" (short story), Nowhere Magazine

    2017
  • "Ting" (short story), Epiphany Magazine

    2009
  • "Freizeit" (short story), Five Chapters

    2007
  • "Glass" (short story), Zone 3

    2006
  • "Belly Dancing" (short story), Ballyhoo Stories

    2005
  • "Dishdash" (short story), Nidus Magazine

    2004

Awards and Recognition

  • First Pages Prize for Creative Nonfiction (longlist), 2023
  • Massachusetts Cultural Council Grants, 2023 and 2022
  • Martha Boschen Porter Fund Award for Writers (recipient), 2022
  • Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music In Literature (finalist), 2022
  • Black Lawrence Press, Big Moose Prize (longlist), 2022
  • Orision Books Fiction Prize (finalist), 2021
  • Housatonic Book Award (finalist), 2021
  • Leapfrog Fiction Award (winner), 2019
  • Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music In Literature (runner up), 2019
  • Fiction Prize, Dogwood Journal (finalist), 2019
  • Supernatural Fiction Award, The Ghost Story (honorable mention), 2019
  • Spring Award, Nowhere Magazine (honorable mention), 2017
  • Fiction Award, Zone 3 (honorable mention), 2006