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.
Featured Work
Amphibians
Winner, Leapfrog Press Global Fiction Prize:
Short story collection from Leapfrog Press (US), Can of Worms Press (UK) and Tantor Audio, March 2021
"From page one, AMPHIBIANS is the work of an extraordinary talent. How shrewd and compelling these stories are, as they range from Maine to New York to Japan to the Emirates and back. Their remarkable gift is to show us – wisely and sharply – the crucial contradictions of feeling in whatever unfolds, from passing encounters to long-held ties."– Joan Silber, PEN/Faulkner and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of IMPROVEMENT
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
Press and Media Mentions
- Praise for Tupper's debut novel, A Thousand and One Nights:
- "Wonderful and incisive...a witty, poignant, wholly worthwhile read." — Elizabeth Strout
- "A one-of-a-kind book, fascinating and honest.” — Joan Silber
- "This is a moving and accomplished first novel.” - Jim Shepard
- "...shrewdly observed..."--The Boston Globe
- "Both an off-kilter take on the conventional coming-of-age tale and a sly commentary on the underbelly of celebrity culture, this truly original book is basically uncategorizable—blissfully so."--Elle.com
- "Add [this] title to your must-read list."--The Sacramento Bee