Lauren Acampora is a novelist and short fiction writer whose work has appeared in the Paris Review, Guernica, New England Review, Missouri Review, Antioch Review, and Prairie Schooner. A graduate of Brown University, she has contributed to the New York Times Book Review and LitHub and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, Writers OMI International Residency, and the Ragdale Foundation. Her debut collection, The Wonder Garden, was a series of linked stories that won the GLCA New Writers Award, was a finalist for the New England Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Story Prize. Her latest release, the novel The Paper Wasp, follows a dark friendship between two women in modern-day Hollywood and was long-listed for the First Novel Prize. It was also named a Best Summer Read by the New York Times Book Review, USA Today, ELLE, and Publishers Weekly, with BBC.com saying Acampora has “hints of Flannery O’Connor.”