Erika Krouse in conversation with Fiona McFarlane
Free and Open to the Public
Erika Krouse, winner of New Literary Project’s 2026 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, in conversation with Fiona MacFarlane. Free public event.
2026 Joyce Carol Oates Prize Winner Erika Krouse in conversation with Fiona MacFarlane
New Literary Project awards the Joyce Carol Oates Prize to mid-career fiction writers whose body of work speaks to the organization’s mission and vision. The prize is awarded not in recognition of a single book, but to an emerged and still emerging writer of national consequence, at the relatively middle stage of a burgeoning career. The 2026 recipient receives a $50,000 award to encourage and support forthcoming work.
The 2026 JCO winner, Erika Krouse, is the author of four books of fiction and nonfiction, including her most recent collection of short stories, Save Me, Stranger, longlisted for The Story Prize. Her memoir, Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation, won the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, the Colorado Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Housatonic Book Award, and was a New York TimesEditors’ Choice. Her novel Contenders was a finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and her earlier story collection, Come Up and See Me Sometime, won the Paterson Fiction Prize and was named a New York Times Notable Book.
Krouse’s short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, Ploughshares, One Story, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and numerous other publications, and has been selected for Best American Mystery and Suspenseand Best Mystery Stories of the Year. Her story “Eat My Moose,” from Save Me, Stranger, won the 2025 Edgar Award for Best Short Story. She is also a recipient of the Colorado Book Award and the Lighthouse Writers Workshop Beacon Award for Teaching Excellence. Krouse teaches and mentors writers at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver and lives in Colorado.
Krouse will be in conversation with Fiona MacFarlane.
Fiona McFarlane’s first novel, The Night Guest, won several prizes including the Voss Literary Prize and a New South Wales Premier’s Award. It was also shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, Miles Franklin Literary Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction, among others. She is also the author of a short-story collection, The High Places, which won the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Zoetrope: All-Story, and Best Australian Stories. Her second novel, The Sun Walks Down, will be published in Australia (October 2022), the United States (February 2023), and the UK (March 2023).
McFarlane grew up in Sydney, Australia and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.
Join us for this engaging literary event.