Caren Gussoff

A literary and science fiction writer now based in Seattle, Romani writer Caren Gussoff grew up in Yonkers, NY. She received her BA from the University of Colorado and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Before publishing her first novel, Homecoming, in 2000, Gussoff worked as a phone sex worker, apple cider press operator, a bar maid at raves, a high school science teacher, and a case worker for adolescent girls in foster care.

Gussoff was a finalist for the Village Voice's "Writers on the Verge" prize for Homecoming, and followed up with her second book, The Wave and Other Stories in 2003. She then took a brief hiatus from writing, and worked as a burlesque revival performer, and taught college literature and cultural studies, as well as creative writing (her exception to her hiatus was writing the setting chapter in Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York's Acclaimed Creative Writing School).

In 2007, Gussoff returned to writing, embracing her personal love of sci fi, as a lifelong geek, and attended the Clarion West writing workshop, as the Carl Brandon Society¡¯s Octavia E. Butler Scholar. Since then, Gussoff's been published in multiple anthologies and magazines, winning awards such as the Hedgebrook Elizabeth George Award, the Speculative Literature Foundation's Gulliver Grant, a stint as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Geek of the Week, and honors from the European Commission on Science and Society.

Her latest novel, The Birthday Problem, will be published by Pink Narcissus Press in 2014, and an anniversary re-issue of The Wave and a new writing guide, Creating a Sustainable Writing Practice, will be released from Eastlake & Roanoke. Gussoff is currently at work on a new novel, evidenced by the disarray in the home she shares with her husband, artist Chris Sumption, and their two cats, Molly Bloom and Paul Atreides.

In her spare time, Caren is a knitter, TV junk--er, enthusiast--and thrift shopper.

Find her online at @spitkitten, facebook.com/spitkitten, and at spitkitten.com.