Lydia Peelle

Lydia Peelle
Born	Lydia Child Peelle  31 August 1978  Boston
Alma mater	University of Virginia Phillips Exeter Academy Cornell University
Occupation	Short story writer, novelist, speechwriter, teacher
Employer	Southern New Hampshire University (2012–)
Spouse(s)	Ketch Secor
Awards	National Book Foundation (short story collection, 2009) Whiting Awards (short story collection, 2010)

Lydia Peelle is an American fiction writer. In 2009 the National Book Foundation named her a "5 under 35" Honoree.

Career

Before her writing career, Peelle worked as a speechwriter for Governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee. She received a creative writing MFA from the University of Virginia. Her short fiction has appeared in Granta, Orion, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.

Awards

• 2009 National Book Foundation 5 under 35 honoree for fiction
• 2010 Whiting Award for Fiction
• 2010 PEN/Hemingway Award runner-up
• 2012 Anahid Literary Prize for emerging Armenian-American writers

The short story “Mule Killers” was published in The O’Henry Prize Stories 2006 as judged by Kevin Brockmeier, Francine Prose, and Colm Tóibín, and edited by Laura Furman.

Works

• The Midnight Cool. Harper Perennial. 2017. ISBN 978-0-06247-546-6.
• Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing. Harper Perennial. 2009. ISBN 978-0-06172-473-2.
  • "Phantom Pain," Originally published in Granta 102: The New Nature Writing, Summer 2008
  • "Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing," Originally published in One Story, Issue 87, January 2007

Personal

Peelle was named for her great-great-aunt, abolitionist Lydia Maria Child. She married musician and bandleader Ketch Secor on November 3, 2001 in North Andover, Massachusetts. They have two children, a daughter and a son. Peelle lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

External links

• Profile at The Whiting Foundation
• Interview with Gillian Welch for BOMB