Anne Valente

Anne Valente
Born	St. Louis, Missouri
Occupation	Short-story writer, essayist, novelist
Language	English
Education	Washington University in St. Louis (BA) University of Illinois (MS) Bowling Green State University (MFA) University of Cincinnati (PhD)
Notable works	By Light We Knew Our Names (2014) An Elegy for Mathematics (2013)
Notable awards	Copper Nickel Prize (2012) Dzanc Short Story Prize (2011) Notable Story, Best American Non-Required Reading (2011)
Website
www.annevalente.com

Anne Valente is an American writer. Her debut short story collection, By Light We Knew Our Names, won the Dzanc Books Short Story Prize and released in September 2014. She is also the author of the fiction chapbook, An Elegy for Mathematics. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Ninth Letter, The Normal School, The Kenyon Review and Iron Horse Literary Review, among others, and won Copper Nickel’s 2012 Fiction Prize. She was the Georges and Anne Borchardt Scholar at the 2014 Sewanee Writers' Conference and her work was selected as a notable story in Best American Non-Required Reading 2011. Her essays appear in The Believer, Electric Literature and The Washington Post.

In 2016, Anne Valente's debut novel, Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down, will be released by William Morrow/HarperCollins.

Anne Valente teaches creative writing at Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

Education

• BA, English and Film Studies, Washington University in St. Louis
• MS, Journalism, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• MFA, Creative Writing, Bowling Green State University
• PhD, Creative Writing, University of Cincinnati

Awards

• 2015 Featured Author, One Story Literary Debutante Ball
• 2014 Notable Debut Author, The Masters Review.
• 2012 Copper Nickel Prize
• 2011 Dzanc Books Short Story Prize
• 2011 Notable Story, Best American Non-Required Reading
• 2010 Best of the Web Nomination
• Pushcart Prize Nominations: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

Books

• Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down (2016)

Forthcoming from HarperCollins

• By Light We Knew Our Names (2014)

Writing for the Paris Review Daily, Catherine Carberry wrote: "Valente slides between realism and fabulism, and her imaginative leaps alone are noteworthy—but even more so is the heart that beats throughout these stories." ^[1]

"All of the stories in this luminous debut straddle the line between the known and the unknowable. By Light We Knew Our Names illustrates the fact that, whether it’s the discovery of your own identity or the inexplicability of others, the world is full of secrets, and we feel most alive when we are trying (futilely) to uncover them. It’s this sense of mystery that torments and sustains us." - TheRumpus.net^[2]

"In these wonderful stories, Anne Valente shows again and again her talent for extracting the obsessions and anxieties and wonder of childhood, then extrapolating them across the whole of a life: Here feelings manifest as objects, relationships exist as gifts physically given, and every page contains a thrilling combination of sadness and joy, humor and loss, science and mystery and magic. By Light We Knew Our Names is a striking debut, reminiscent of Aimee Bender and Lorrie Moore, but with a bright promise all its own." —Matt Bell, author of In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods ^[3]

• An Elegy for Mathematics (2013)

“Whether touching on the epic or the mundane, each of Anne Valente’s stories is a sweeping but precise examination of what it means to be human. These stories can be very painful, and can be very redemptive, but the grace that carries both along is bright and breathtaking. This is an astounding collection from a talented young writer.” -Amber Sparks, author of May We Shed These Human Bodies^[4]

“In An Elegy for Mathematics, Valente articulates the strangeness and complexity of everyday emotions with startling precision. These stories are daring, beautiful, and urgent.” -Seth Fried, author of The Great Frustration^[5]

Short Stories

• "Home Inventory After a Tornado (Or, Everything We Lost)." Normal School
• "A Brief History of Crime Scene Investigation." Threadcount (Novel Excerpt)
• "The Great Flood." The Collagist
• "Sister, I Paved the Way." Quarterly West
• "Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down." Iron Horse Literary Review
• "The Vault of Gratiot Street Prison." storySouth
• "From the Journal of Common Human Viruses." Banango Street
• "Like the Light Blue of Water." Heavy Feather Review
• "A Field Guide to Female Anatomy." Ninth Letter
• "The Lost Caves of St. Louis." Redivider
• "Not for Ghosts or Daffodils." The Journal
• "Dear Amelia." Copper Nickel
• "A Taste of Tea." Midwestern Gothic
• "Until Our Shadows Claim Us." CutBank
• "The Archivist." Camera Obscura
• "Mollusk, Membrane, Human Heart." Memorious
• "If Everything Fell Silent, Even Sirens." Sou’wester
• "The Gravity Well." Drunken Boat
• "Terrible Angels." Surreal South 2011
• "Everything That Was Ours." Freight Stories
• “By Light We Knew Our Names.” Hayden’s Ferry Review
• “Minivan.” Bellevue Literary Review
• “Latchkey.” Berkeley Fiction Review
• "If the Hum of Bees Flooded Our Ears." Midwestern Gothic
• “So Many States from Home.” Hobart
• “He Who Finds It Lives Forever.” Necessary Fiction
• “A Secret Hum of Blades.” Wigleaf
• “Just Beautiful Girls.” Emprise Review
• “The First Amendment.” Emprise Review
• “An Agreement.” Emprise Review
• “If I Had Walked the Moon.” Unsaid
• “A Very Compassionate Baby.” Annalemma
• “Hands to Caskets.” TripleQuick Fiction
• “Baggage.” JMWW
• “She Dreams of Oceans.” Keyhole
• “Something Calming, Something Necessary.” You Must Be This Tall To Ride
• “May This Strap Restrain You.” Necessary Fiction
• “Practice.” Storylandia
• “The Water Cycle.” Emprise Review
• “Hope Chest.” Monkeybicycle
• “To A Place Where We Take Flight.” Storyglossia
• “Nines.” PANK

References

1. Carberry, Catherine. "Staff Picks: No Conscience, No Hope, No October". The Paris Review. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
2. Teiser, Sadye. "By Light We Knew Our Names". TheRumpus.net. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
3. Bell, Matt. "Praise for By Light We Knew Our Names". TheRumpus.net. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
4. Sparks, Amber. "An Elegy for Mathematics". Origami Zoo Press. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
5. Fried, Seth. "An Elegy for Mathematics". Origami Zoo Press. Retrieved 10 March 2015.