Discipline: Literature – fiction

Nova Ren Suma

Discipline: Literature – fiction
Region: Philadelphia, PA
MacDowell Fellowships: 2005, 2011, 2013
More: novaren.com

ova Ren Suma is a New York Times bestselling author and a two-time Edgar Award finalist. Her latest novel, A Room Away from the Wolves, was an Edgar Award finalist, named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, and called “shiver-inducingly delicious” by The New York Times. Her other novels include the #1 New York Times bestselling The Walls Around Us, a 2016 Edgar Award finalist and a #1 Indie Next Pick that was worked on at MacDowell, as well as Imaginary Girls, 17 & Gone, and Dani Noir. Her short stories have appeared in the anthologies Slasher Girls & Monster Boys, Toil & Trouble, and It’s a Whole Spiel.

Nova has an M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University and a B.A. in writing and photography from Antioch College. She was a fellow in fiction with the New York Foundation for the Arts and is co-editor-in-chief of an online publication of YA short stories called FORESHADOW: A Serial YA Anthology. She teaches a popular YA novel workshop at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program and in the creative writing department at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also core faculty in the Writing for Children & Young Adults M.F.A. program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She grew up in small towns across the Hudson Valley, spent most of her adult life in New York City, and now lives in Philadelphia.

Photo by Alison Cherry

Studios

Nef

Nova Ren Suma worked in the Nef studio.

Nef Studio, the first entirely new studio built after 1937, was donated by esteemed photographer, explorer, author, and MacDowell Fellow Evelyn Steffanson Nef in 1992. Endowed funds for the studio’s maintenance in perpetuity and an annual Fellowship for photographers were given in addition to funds for construction. Mrs. Nef said she had known about MacDowell all her…

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