About Whitney

Whitney holds a BA in English Literature from Wesleyan University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. Her short fiction, essays, and interviews have appeared in numerous publications including Vogue, The Telegraph, The Tatler, and Bellevue Literary Review. Her first novel, The Age of Light, based on the life of pioneering photographer Lee Miller, was published by Little, Brown (US) and Picador (UK) in February, 2019, and was a Boston Globe and IndieNext bestseller and named one of the best books of 2019 by Parade, Glamour Magazine, Real Simple, Refinery 29, Booklist and Yahoo. Internationally, The Age of Light won Le prix Rive Gauche à Paris, was a coups de couer selection from the American Library in Paris, and has been published in over a dozen other countries. Whitney is the recipient of a 2020 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Fellowship in Fiction, and has been awarded residencies at the Virginia Center for the Arts and Ragdale. She teaches fiction in the Boston area and is a co-founder of the Arlington Author Salon, a quarterly reading series. She lives with her husband and daughter in Arlington, MA, where she is at work on her second novel.

Recognitions include:

Massachusetts Cultural Council Artists Fellowship in Fiction 2020
Ragdale Artists Residency 2020
Virginia Center For the Arts Residency 2016
St. Botolph Emerging Artists Grant 2015
2014 Somerville Arts Council Artists Fellow
Loren D. Milliman Fellowship for second year of graduate study
Gerberding Fellowship for study in Rome
Adelphic Scholarship for Wesleyan Writers’ Conference

Whitney is a co-founder and serves on the organizing committee for the Arlington Author Salon, a quarterly reading series in Arlington, MA. The series regularly attracts 50-100 people, and past featured authors include Margot Livesey, Richard Hoffman, Celeste Ng, Michael Blanding, Steve Almond, Michelle Hoover, Ron MacLean, Reggie Gibson, Val Wang, Lisa Borders, and many more. In 2020, the series was awarded its fifth annual Arlington Cultural Council grant, which enables the committee to pay the presenting authors honoraria for their work.

Whitney teaches fiction writing workshops in the greater Boston area and is available for editorial consultations on short stories, novel writing, and memoir. To find out more or to work with Whitney on your writing, please email her at [email protected].

 

To download a high-res version of Whitney’s author photos or cover image, right-click on any of the images to the left and save. Author photo credits are Sharona Jacobs.