Deb Olin Unferth

Deb Olin Unferth (born November 19, 1968) is an American short story writer, novelist, and memoirist. She is the author of the collection of stories Minor Robberies, the novel Vacation, both published by McSweeney's, and the memoir, Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War, published by Henry Holt. Unferth was a finalist for a 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for her memoir, Revolution.

Career
Her work has appeared in Harper's, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Granta, McSweeney's, The Believer, The Boston Review, Esquire, and other magazines. She is a frequent contributor to Noon. She also has received two Pushcart Prizes. Unferth is an associate professor in creative writing at The University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center and the New Writers Project.

Prison education
She founded and runs the Pen-City Writers, a two-year creative-writing certificate program at a maximum security prison in southern Texas. For this work she won the 2017 Texas Governor's Criminal Justice Service Award.

Books

 * Barn 8 (novel, Graywolf Press), 2020
 * Wait Till You See Me Dance (story collection, Graywolf Press), 2017
 * I, Parrot (graphic novel) with Elizabeth Haidle, 2017
 * Revolution (memoir, Henry Holt), 2011
 * Vacation (novel, McSweeney's), 2008
 * Minor Robberies (short stories, McSweeney's), 2007

Awards

 * Guggenheim Fellowship, 2018
 * Pushcart Prize for "Likeable," 2014
 * National Book Critics Award finalist for Revolution, 2012
 * Pushcart Prize, 2011
 * Creative Capital Grant for Literature, 2009
 * Cabell First Novelist Award for Vacation, 2009
 * Pushcart Prize, 2005

Nonfiction

 * Memoir Manifesto
 * Where I Write
 * Unferth reads from her memoir Revolution on the InDigest podcast

Short fiction

 * Minor Robberies

Interviews

 * Interview on The Rumpus
 * Interview on HTMLGIANT
 * Interview on Bookslut with Tao Lin
 * 2011 radio interview (50 minutes) at The Bat Segundo Show
 * "I Start From a Place of Outrage and Sadness": A conversation on humor in fiction with Elisa Albert, Steve Almond, Brock Clarke, Sam Lipsyte, Zachary Martin, John McNally, and Deb Olin Unferth in Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts (24.2)