About the Author

Stephanie Soileau's collection of short stories LAST ONE OUT SHUT OFF THE LIGHTS was published in 2020 by Little, Brown & Co. and her debut novel, SHOULD THE WATERS TAKE US, is forthcoming from Doubleday in 2026. Her work has also appeared in Best American Short Stories, Glimmer Train, Oxford American, Ecotone, Tin House, New Stories from the South, and other journals and anthologies, and has been supported by fellowships from the Wallace Stegner Fellowship Program at Stanford University, the Camargo Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has taught creative writing at the Art Institute of Chicago, Stanford University, and the University of Southern Maine. Originally from Lake Charles, Louisiana, Stephanie now lives in Chicago and is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Chicago.