Rilla Askew is the author of five novels, a book of stories, and a collection of creative nonfiction. Her first novel, The Mercy Seat, was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Dublin IMPAC Prize, and received the Oklahoma Book Award and the Western Heritage Award in 1998. Fire in Beulah, Askew’s acclaimed novel about the Tulsa Race Massacre, received the 2002 American Book Award and was selected as the centennial book for Oklahoma’s One Book One State program. Her novel Harpsong received seven literary awards including the Oklahoma Book Award, the WILLA award from Women Writing the West, and the Violet Crown Award from the Writers League of Texas. Her novel Kind of Kin centers on Oklahoma’s anti-immigration laws and was published by Ecco Press in 2013. Askew received a 2009 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a former Fellow at Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbertide, Italy, and was a featured reader at the 2008 International Chinese and World Literature Conference in Beijing. She teaches at the University of Oklahoma.

Website: http://www.rillaaskew.com/

Publications

• Most American: Notes from a Wounded Place , University of Oklahoma Press (2017)
• Kind of Kin , Ecco Press (2013)
• Harpsong , University of Oklahoma Press
• Fire in Beulah , Viking Penguin (2001)
• The Mercy Seat , Viking Penguin (1997)
• Strange Business , Viking Penguin (1992)
• Prize for the Fire , University of Oklahoma Press (October 22, 2021)

Awards

• Academy of Arts and Letters Arts and Letters Award(2009)
• Oklahoma Book Award(2008)
• Western Heritage Award(2008)
• American Book Award(2002)

Degrees

• Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from Brooklyn College (May 1989)

Genres of Interest

Fiction, Creative nonfiction, Playwriting, Screenwriting, Poetry