Elizabeth Poliner

Elizabeth Poliner is the author of the novel Spinning at the Edges, forthcoming from Harper on May 12, 2026. She is also the author of As Close to Us as Breathing, a novel (winner of the 2017 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in Fiction, finalist for both the Ribalow Prize for Jewish Fiction and the Library of Virginia People’s Choice Award for Fiction, and an Amazon Best Book of 2016); Mutual Life & Casualty, a novel-in-stories; What You Know in Your Hands, a poetry collection; and Sudden Fog, a poetry chapbook. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared widely in literary journals including The Kenyon Review, The Sun, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Colorado Review. She is a recipient of seven individual artist grants from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, fiction fellowships to the Wesleyan and Sewanee writers’ conferences, and artist residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, the Wurlitzer Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has taught creative writing extensively, for many years in the MFA and undergraduate programs at Hollins University, as well as at American University, George Washington University, and The Writer’s Center.