Claire Vaye Watkins

Claire Vaye Watkins was born in Bishop, California in 1984. She was raised in the Mojave Desert, first in Tecopa, California and then across the state line in Pahrump, Nevada.[1] Watkins received her Bachelor's degree from the University of Nevada, Reno and her Master of Fine Arts from Ohio State University where she was a Presidential fellow. Watkins is currently a faculty member at the University of California, Irvine, where she teaches creative writing.[4] Previously, she has taught as a visiting assistant professor at Princeton University, an assistant professor at Bucknell University, and an assistant professor at the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program.[3]

Watkins published Battleborn, a collection of short stories, in 2012 with publishing house Riverhead. The New York Times reviewed her collection as being "brutally unsentimental,"[5] writing that "Watkins’s characters wish to make sense of their pain, but also to be assured that they are not alone in it." [5] The New Yorker wrote that Watkins was within a genre entirely new: "Nevada Gothic".[6]Battleborn won many prizes, including The Story Prize, The Dylan Thomas Prize, The New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, The Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and The Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.[3]

Watkins questioned her motives of publishing Battleborn in the 2016 Winter Issue of Tin House in her essay, "On Pandering," which appeared to critical reception[7] and, according to the New Yorker, was "discussed heatedly for weeks, even months, thereafter."[8] "So, natural then," writes Watkins, "that Battleborn was well-received by the white male [literary] establishment: it was written for them. The whole book’s a pander."[9] Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams called it a "must-read essay"[10] and Jia Tolentino of Jezebel.com called it "fiery" and "unusually honest," suggesting "it will be talked about for quite some time."[11] Originally, "On Pandering" was given as a lecture during the 2015 Tin House Summer Writers' Workshop.

Gold Fame Citrus, published in 2015 by Riverhead,[12] is a speculative fiction novel focused on the Californian drought. It is Watkins' second book and first novel.[13] The work received positive reviews.[14] Slate called her debut novel, "enthralling,"[13] and The Guardian praised Watkins' ability to render landscape as extraordinary.[15] In the New York Times Sunday Book Review, reviewer Emily St. John Mandel wrote that "[a] great pleasure of the book is Watkins’s fearlessness."[16] The book received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly which said it was "packed with persuasive detail, luminous writing, and a grasp of the history (popular, political, natural, and imagined) needed to tell a story that is original yet familiar, strange yet all too believable."[17]

A finalist for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, Watkins was also selected as one of the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35."

She is the daughter of Martha Watkins, who Watkins describes as “this incredible dynamo, a great bullshitter",[2] and Paul Watkins,[18] a former member of Charles Manson's "Family".

• NPR Best Short Stories of 2012[19]
• 2012 The Story Prize winner Battleborn[20]
• 2012 Dylan Thomas Prize winner Battleborn[21]
• 2012 American Academy of Arts and Letters Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Awards winner Battleborn
• 2012 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction longlist Battleborn
• 2012 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award shortlist Battleborn[22]

• Battleborn, Penguin Publishing Group, 2012, ISBN 978-1-101-59675-3.
• Gold Fame Citrus Penguin Publishing Group. 2015, ISBN 978-0-698-19594-3.
• "On Pandering", 2015, Tin House.[23]