Deesha Philyaw
Deesha Philyaw is the author of the debut short story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, which was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and a 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction; the collection of stories explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good.
Nine stories featuring four generations of characters who grapple with who they want to be in the world, the collection was praised as “luminous stories populated by deeply moving and multifaceted characters,” by Kirkus Reviewsand “addictive while also laying bare the depth and vulnerability of Black women,” by Observer. Author Tara Campbell notes, “The love in Philyaw’s stories runs the gamut from sweet to bitter, sexy to sisterly, temporary to time tested, often with hidden aspects. The word secret in the title is earned, and some of the secrets are downright juicy.” The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is being developed for television by Tessa Thompson for HBO Max.
Philyaw’s writing on race, parenting, gender, and culture has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Brevity, dead housekeeping, Apogee Journal, Catapult, Harvard Review, ESPN’s “The Undefeated,” The Baltimore Review, TueNight, Ebony and Bitch magazines, and various anthologies.
Philyaw is the 2022–23 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi. She is a past Pushcart Prize nominee for essay writing in Full Grown People. Philyaw lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Deesha Philyaw is the author of the debut short story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, which was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and a 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction; the collection of stories explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good.
Nine stories featuring four generations of characters who grapple with who they want to be in the world, the collection was praised as “luminous stories populated by deeply moving and multifaceted characters,” by Kirkus Reviewsand “addictive while also laying bare the depth and vulnerability of Black women,” by Observer. Author Tara Campbell notes, “The love in Philyaw’s stories runs the gamut from sweet to bitter, sexy to sisterly, temporary to time tested, often with hidden aspects. The word secret in the title is earned, and some of the secrets are downright juicy.” The Secret Lives of Church Ladies is being developed for television by Tessa Thompson for HBO Max.
Philyaw’s writing on race, parenting, gender, and culture has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Brevity, dead housekeeping, Apogee Journal, Catapult, Harvard Review, ESPN’s “The Undefeated,” The Baltimore Review, TueNight, Ebony and Bitch magazines, and various anthologies.
Philyaw is the 2022–23 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi. She is a past Pushcart Prize nominee for essay writing in Full Grown People. Philyaw lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
