Photo credit: Carolyn De Berry
About
Jennine Capó Crucet is a novelist, essayist, and screenwriter. She’s the author of four books, most recently the novel Say Hello to My Little Friend, which won the 2025 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, the 2025 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. Her first novel, Make Your Home Among Strangers, won the International Latino Book Award, was named a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice book, and was cited as a best book of the year by NBC Latino, the Guardian, the Miami Herald, and other venues; it has been adopted as an all-campus read at over forty U.S. universities. Her other books include the story collection How to Leave Hialeah, which won the Iowa Short Fiction Prize, the John Gardner Book Award, and the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award; and the essay collection My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education, which was long-listed for the 2019 PEN America/Open Book Award. A former Contributing Opinion Writer for the New York Times, she’s also a recipient of a PEN/O. Henry Prize, the Picador Fellowship, and the Hillsdale Award for the Short Story, awarded by the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Her writing has appeared on PBS NewsHour, National Public Radio, and in publications such as the Atlantic, Condé Nast Traveler, and others. She’s worked as a professor of Ethnic Studies and of Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska and at Florida State University. She’s also worked for One Voice Scholars Program as a college access counselor to first-generation college students and as a sketch comedienne (though not at the same time). Born and raised in Miami to Cuban parents, she lives in North Carolina with her family.
