Laura van den Berg was born and raised in Florida, where she earned her M.F.A. at Emerson College. Her debut novel Find Me, published in 2015, was longlisted for the 2016 International Dylan Thomas Prize and selected as a best book of 2015 by Time Out New York and NPR. Her two story collections, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us and The Isle of Youth, were both finalists for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her honours include several awards, such as the Bard Fiction Prize and the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her fiction has been anthologised in The Best American Short Stories. She has taught fiction at several institutions. At present, Laura is a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Fiction at Harvard University and lives in Cambridge, MA with her husband and dog.