Laura Sims


Laura Sims is an American novelist and poet. In 2017, Sims' debut novel Looker sparked a bidding war, which ultimately resulted in a major deal with Scribner. The book follows the spiraling descent of a woman obsessed—with the end of her marriage, with her inability to have a child, with her infuriatingly bourgeois Brooklyn neighborhood, and with her movie star neighbor. It was released on January 8, 2019.
Sims's second novel, How Can I Help You, came out in July 2023. The novel received a major sales boost when bestselling crime novelist Harlan Coben recommended it as one of his favorite reads on the Today Show.

Biography

Sims is the author of four books of poetry: Staying Alive, My god is this a man, Stranger, and Practice, Restraint. In 2014, powerHouse Books published Fare Forward: Letters from David Markson, compiled and edited by Sims. She has published five poetry chapbooks, including POST-. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Aufgabe, Black Clock, Black Warrior Review, Colorado Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Crayon, and Denver Quarterly, among others. She has published book reviews and essays in Boston Review, New England Review, Rain Taxi, and The Review of Contemporary Fiction. Her honors include the 2005 Fence Books Alberta Prize for Practice, Restraint and a Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship from the Japan-US Friendship Commission in 2006.
Sims is a graduate of the College of William and Mary. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington. She is a professor of creative writing, literature and composition who currently teaches at New York University. She has been a featured writer for Harriet, the Poetry Foundation's blog, and she is a co-editor of Instance Press with poets Elizabeth Robinson, Beth Anderson, and Susanne Dyckman. She lives in South Orange, New Jersey.

Published works

Novels

  • Looker
  • ''How Can I Help You''

    Poetry books

  • Staying Alive
  • My god is this a man
  • Stranger
  • ''Practice, Restraint''

    Nonfiction books

  • ''Fare Forward: Letters from David Markson''

    Chapbooks

  • POST-
  • ''Bank Book''

    Recent poems

  • Interviews

  • Reviews

  • at Tarpaulin Sky
  • at Rain Taxi
  • at The Volta
  • at New York Times
  • at Chicago Tribune
  • at Winnipeg Review
  • at Bookslut
  • at Coldfront
  • at HTMLgiant
Category:21st-century American poets
Category:College of [William & Mary alumni]
Category:Writers from Richmond, Virginia
Category:Living people
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:21st-century American women poets