About
Sarah Cypher is the author of "The Skin and Its Girl," forthcoming from Ballantine Books in April 2023. She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Creative Writing Fellow in fiction. She also graduated with a degree in creative writing from Carnegie Mellon University. Her fiction has appeared in New Ohio Review, Majuscule, North American Review, LEON Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, and others. She grew up in a working-class Arab-American family outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and now lives in the Washington, DC, area with her wife.
Featured Work
The Skin and Its Girl: A Novel
The novel is narrated by Betty Rummani, a girl born with cobalt-blue skin to a Palestinian-American family on the night their ancestral soap factory in Nablus is destroyed in an airstrike. The family's matriarchal storyteller, the inimitable Nuha Rummani, believes the girl embodies their sacred family history, but as Betty looks back from her auntie's graveside decades later, she recognizes a hidden queer history speaking through Nuha's insistent folktales, echoing Betty's fears as she faces a decision to emigrate with the woman she loves and continue the family’s cycle of exile.
Other Works
Awards and Recognition
- Rona Jaffe Creative Writing Fellow
