Lauren Acampora is the author of The Wonder Garden, The Paper Wasp, andThe Hundred Waters, all published by Grove Atlantic. Her new collection of linked stories, The Animal Room, is forthcoming in June 2026 and features the story “Dominion,” which was selected for The Best American Short Stories 2025 and performed on stage for Selected Shorts.

The Wonder Garden, a debut collection of linked stories, was named a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and an Indie Next selection, and was chosen as one of the best books of 2015 by Amazon and NPR. It won the GLCA New Writers Award and was a finalist for the New England Book Award. It was longlisted for The Story Prize and nominated for the Kirkus Prize.

Lauren’s first novel, The Paper Wasp was named a Best Summer Read by The New York Times Book Review,USA Today, Oprah Magazine, ELLE, Town & Country, BBC.com, Daily Mail (UK), Tatler, Thrillist, and Publishers Weekly, as well as a Best Indie Novel of 2019 by Chicago Review of Books. It was also longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and nominated for the Kirkus Prize.

The Hundred Waters was named one of Vogue’s best books of the year, a LitHub best book of the summer, and one of The Millions’ most-anticipated books of 2022.

Lauren’s short fiction and other writing has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as The Paris Review, One Story, New England Review, Story Magazine, Guernica, Missouri Review, The Common, Prairie Schooner, Antioch Review, The New York Times, and LitHub, and was anthologized in The Best American Short Stories 2025. She graduated from Brown University, earned an MFA at Brooklyn College, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Ucross, Ragdale Foundation, Art OMI, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Raised in Connecticut, Lauren lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband, artist Thomas Doyle, and their daughter.