Monica West

Monica West's debut novel Revival Season about a young woman’s crisis of faith in her Black Baptist family was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, a Barnes and Noble Discover selection, and short-listed for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Her second novel Light the Way, about a young woman’s search for her missing older sister that leads her into a dangerous religious cult, will be published by Putnam on February 2, 2027. Monica received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow. She has received additional fellowships and funding from Hawthornden, Ragdale, Bread Loaf, Hedgebrook, Kimbilio Fiction, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa, the University of San Francisco, and the University of Washington.

• Fiction writing
• Novel writing
• Black literature

• Literary fiction
• Coming-of-age stories
• Religion in fiction

• Co-Chair, MFA Postgraduate Teaching Fellowship Selection Committee (2021-2022; 2023-2024)
• Coordinator, Life After MFA Series (2021-2022; 2023-2024)
• Admissions Committee 2021-2022; 2023-2024

• Iowa Writers' Workshop, MFA in Creative Writing, 2017
• New York University, MA in English Literature, 2003
• Duke University, BA in English Literature, 1999

• Adjunct Faculty in Creative Writing, The University of Washington (2024-2025)
• Visiting Assistant Professor of Fiction, USF (2021-2022; 2023-2024)
• Adjunct Faculty in the MFA in Writing Program, USF (2022; 2023-2024)
• Teacher of Record in Creative Writing, University of Iowa (2016-2017)

• John Gardner Fellow in Fiction, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, 2023
• Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award Short List, 2022
• Christianity Today Book Award (Fiction), 2022
• New York Times Editors' Choice, 2021
• Barnes and Noble Discover Selection, 2021

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• Light the Way, Putnam/Penguin Random House, February 2027
• Revival Season, Simon and Schuster, 2021
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