Samantha Hunt

Not to be confused with Sam Hunt.

Samantha Hunt (born May 15, 1971) is an American novelist, essayist and short-story writer.

Samantha Hunt
Born	(1971-05-15) May 15, 1971 (age 53)
Occupation	Novelist
Language	English
Nationality	American
Education	Warren Wilson College (MFA)
Notable works	The Seas , The Dark Dark,Mr. Splitfoot,The Invention of Everything Else, The Unwritten Book
Notable awards	St. Francis College Literary Prize
Website
www.samanthahunt.net

She is the author of The Dark Dark and The Unwritten Book, published by Farrar, Straus, Giroux; The Seas, published by MacAdam/Cage and Tin House;^[1] and the novels Mr. Splitfoot and The Invention of Everything Else,^[2] published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Early life

Hunt was born the youngest of six children^[3] in 1971. Her father was an editor, her mother is a painter.^[4] She moved in 1989 to attend the University of Vermont,^[5] where she studied literature, printmaking and geology. She received her MFA from Warren Wilson College, before moving to New York City in 1999.^[4]

Career

Books

Hunt's debut novel, The Seas, first published in 2004, is a magical-realist novel about a young girl in a Northern town who believes herself to be a mermaid.^[6] The book was voted one of the Village Voice Literary Supplement's Favorite Books of 2004,^[7] and won the National Book Foundation award for "5 under 35" in 2006.^[8] In 2018, The Seas was republished by Tin House Books in 2018 with a foreword by Maggie Nelson.^[7]

In 2008, she published her second novel, The Invention of Everything Else through Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The novel provides a fictionalized account of the final days of inventor Nikola Tesla. It won both the Bard Fiction Prize in 2010, and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize.^[9]

Her other novels include Mr. Splitfoot (2016), a ghost story,^[10] and The Dark Dark: Stories (2017), a collection of short stories.

Hunt's short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, McSweeney's, The Atlantic, A Public Space, Cabinet, Esquire, The Believer, Blind Spot, Harper’s Bazaar, The Village Voice, Seed Magazine, Tin House, New York Magazine, on the radio program This American Life and in a number of anthologies including Trampoline edited by Kelly Link. Hunt's play, The Difference Engine, a story about the life of Charles Babbage, was produced by the Theater of a Two-Headed Calf.

Awards

Hunt won the Bard Fiction Prize,^[11] the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 award,^[12] the St. Francis College Literary Prize^[13] and was a finalist for the Orange Prize.^[14] In 2017, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction.^[15]

Literary influences

Hunt's credits her experiences growing up one of six children for her interest in literature,^[16] her dialogue,^[17] and her fictional portrayals of motherhood.^[3]

Profession

Hunt is a professor of writing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.^[10]

Bibliography

Books

• The Unwritten Book (2022)
• The Dark Dark: Stories (2017)
• Mr Splitfoot (2016)
• The Invention of Everything Else (2008) Reading at Google
• The Seas (2004)
• My Inventions and Other Writings by Nikola Tesla and Samantha Hunt (introduction - 2011)

Online texts

Short stories

• "A Love Story", The New Yorker, 22 May 2017^[18]
• "The Yellow", The New Yorker, 21 November 2010^[19]
• "Three Days", The New Yorker, 8 January 2016^[20]
• "Go Team", The Atlantic, March 2020^[21]

Essays

• "There Is Only One Direction", New York Magazine, 12 May 2015^[22]
• "Queer Theorem", Lapham's Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2, Spring 2017^[23]
• "Terrible Twins", The New York Times Magazine, 1 April 2011^[24]
• "Swiss Near-Miss", This American Life, 11 June 2014^[25]
• "A Brief History of Books That Do Not Exist", Lithub, 4 January 2016^[26]

References

1. Lyons, Stephen (December 19, 2004). "A 'mermaid holds the key to a beloved sailors fate". San Francisco Chronicle.
2. Thomas, Louisa (March 23, 2008). "At The Hotel New Yorker". New York Times.
3. Leyshon, Cressida (May 23, 2017). "This Week in Fiction: Samantha Hunt on the Unspoken Terrors of Being a New Mother". The New Yorker. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
4. "Samantha Hunt". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
5. "Q&A with author Samantha Hunt". Financial Times. February 19, 2016. Retrieved June 19, 2022.(subscription required)
6. "The Seas". www.goodreads.com. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
7. "Samantha Hunt : : The Seas". samanthahunt.net. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
8. "The Seas". National Book Foundation. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
9. "Samantha Hunt". www.samanthahunt.net. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
10. "Pratt Institute". www.pratt.edu. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
11. "Samantha Hunt, 2010 Recipient" Bard Fiction Prize.
12. "KQED, Public Media for Northern California". www.kqed.org.
13. "Samantha Hunt Wins 2019 SFC Literary Prize for The Dark Dark". St. Francis College. September 21, 2019. Retrieved March 24, 2023.
14. Itzkoff, David (April 21, 2009). "Orange Prize Finalists Announced". New York Times.
15. "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Samantha Hunt". Retrieved March 10, 2020.
16. "Samantha Hunt: By the Book". The New York Times. June 21, 2018. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
17. Gebremedhin, Thomas (February 11, 2020). "Samantha Hunt on the Unbearable Flatness of Being". The Atlantic. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
18. Hunt, Samantha (May 15, 2017). ""A Love Story"". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
19. Hunt, Samantha (November 22, 2010). "The Yellow". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
20. Hunt, Samantha (January 9, 2006). "Three Days". The New Yorker. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
21. Hunt, Samantha (February 11, 2020). "Go, Team". The Atlantic. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
22. Hunt, Samantha (May 12, 2015). "There Is Only One Direction". The Cut. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
23. "Queer Theorem | Samantha Hunt". Lapham’s Quarterly. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
24. Hunt, Samantha (April 1, 2011). "Terrible Twins". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
25. Beckmann, Claire; Samantha Hunt (December 12, 2017). "Swiss Near-miss". This American Life. Retrieved February 24, 2022.
26. Hunt, Samantha (January 4, 2016). "A Brief History of Books That Do Not Exist". Literary Hub. Retrieved February 24, 2022.

External links

• The New York Times
• Interview at Bookslut
• Interview on the Bat Segundo Show