Patricia Lockwood

For the politician, see Patricia A. Lockwood.
Patricia Lockwood
A caucasian woman with short hair lecturing at a podium
Lockwood in 2014
Born (1982-04-27) April 27, 1982 (age 42)
Fort Wayne, Indiana U.S.
OccupationWriter
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
Period2004–present
Notable works"Rape Joke", Priestdaddy, No One Is Talking About This
Notable awardsThurber Prize for American Humor
2018 Priestdaddy

Patricia Lockwood (born April 27, 1982) is an American poet, novelist, and essayist. Beginning a career in poetry, her collections include Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals, a 2014 New York Times Notable Book. Later prose works received more exposure and notoriety. She is a multiple award winner: her 2017 memoir Priestdaddy won the Thurber Prize for American Humor and her 2021 debut novel, No One Is Talking About This, won the Dylan Thomas Prize. In addition to her writing activities, she has been a contributing editor for the London Review of Books since 2019 .

She is notable for working across a variety of genres. "Your work can flow into the shape that people make for you," she told Slate in an interview in 2020. "Or you can try to break that shape."[1] In 2022, she received the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Morton Dauwen Zabel Award for her contributions to the field of experimental writing.[2]

Lockwood is the only writer with both fiction and nonfiction works selected as the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times. At four years, she also holds the record for the shortest span between repeat appearances on the list.[3]

Kirkus Reviews has called her "our guide to moving beyond thinking of the internet as a thing apart from real lives and real art," and Garden & Gun: "goddess of the avant-garde."[4]

  1. ^ Kois, Dan (October 6, 2020). "You Could Make This Place Beautiful". Slate. Retrieved October 6, 2020.
  2. ^ Fedor, Ashley (March 11, 2022). "2022 Literature Award Winners". American Academy of Arts and Letters. Retrieved March 13, 2022.
  3. ^ "The 10 Best Books of 2021". Wikipedia. December 20, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2021.
  4. ^ "No One Is Talking About This". Kirkus Reviews. November 30, 2020. Retrieved November 30, 2020.