Sarah Gerkensmeyer

_What You Are Now Enjoying_ has been longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, alongside the likes of George Saunders, Junot Diaz, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Joyce Carol Oates.

From Wonder Woman as an angst-ridden teenager to ghost twins to monster catfish to the secret relationships between polygamous wives, the stories in What You Are Now Enjoying approach the familiar in unfamiliar ways, allowing us to recognize and claim the unordinary moments in our own often ordinary lives.

"The smart, funky, well-turned stories in What You Are Now Enjoying keep the reader not just guessing and leaning forward but in a perpetual state of wonder. Sarah Gerkensmeyer is an original, a sneaky sorceress of a storyteller." -- Stewart O'Nan

"Gerkensmeyer's voice is legitimately one-of-a-kind, and What You Are Now Enjoying is the work of a deviously entertaining mastermind. Just when you peg this book as delightfully eerie and coy, it will serenade you with bursts of lush humor, real sorrow, and honest warmth. A hypnotic debut from a young writer who's going to be around for a long, long time." -Patrick Somerville

"These stories are dark and fantastic, full of danger and humor and heart. Gerkensmeyer's world is distinct and vibrant and haunting-filled with characters whose longing rings with truth and familiarity, inducing in her reader a physical ache. What a remarkable and unforgettable collection." -Aryn Kyle

Sarah Gerkensmeyer's story collection, What You Are Now Enjoying, was selected by Stewart O'Nan as winner of the 2012 Autumn House Press Fiction Prize. A Pushcart Prize nominee and a finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction and the Italo Calvino Prize for Fabulist Fiction, Sarah has received scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Ragdale, Grub Street, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her stories have appeared in Guernica, The New Guard Literary Review, The Massachusetts Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, and Cream City Review, among several other journals. Sarah is the 2012-13 Pen Parentis Fellow. She received her MFA in fiction from Cornell University and now teaches creative writing at State University of New York at Fredonia.