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Lauren Groff Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Lauren Groff
Photo: Lucy Schaeffer

Lauren Groff

How to pronounce Lauren Groff: "Groff" rhymes with "off."

Lauren Groff Biography

Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and The New York Times–bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies, Matrix, and The Vaster Wilds, and the celebrated short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won The Story Prize, the ABA Indies' Choice Award, France's Grand Prix de l'Héroïne, and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida.

Lauren Groff's website

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Interview

Lauren Groff's discusses her acclaimed first novel, The Monsters of Templeton and her 2021 novel, Matrix.

A Conversation with Lauren Groff about Matrix

Your first novel since Fates and Furies takes a dramatic shift from your usual contemporary settings. How did you land on this particular setting? Where did the idea first come to you?

I had a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study when I heard Dr. Katie Bugyis give a speech on medieval nuns' liturgical notes. I had thought, going in, that it perhaps wasn't something I would be interested in, but her talk just exploded my mind. Also, we were in the middle of the Trump presidency, and I was exhausted; I just wanted to live in a female utopia. After Katie's talk I knew I wanted to go to a nunnery, all the way back to the days of medieval Benedictine enclosures, to be entirely surrounded by women. Hers was the right lecture at the right time. It lit the wick.

Your main character was a real person, Marie de France. When you were conceptualizing Marie, how much came from historical text, and how much was your own creation?

Nobody knows all that much about the life of the historical figure Marie de France, who was the first published woman in French. Her identity is sort of shadowy. There are suppositions that she may have been an abbess, and/or the ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Lauren Groff at BookBrowse
The Vaster Wilds jacket Matrix jacket Florida jacket Fates and Furies jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Lauren Groff but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • M.T. Anderson

    M.T. Anderson

    M.T. ANDERSON is the New York Times bestselling author of Feed, a National Book Award finalist and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, winner of the ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Matrix

    Try:
    Nicked
    by M.T. Anderson

  • Joe Hill

    Joe Hill

    Joseph Hillstrom King, born in 1971 (pen name: Joe Hill), is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman and Heart-Shaped Box. His second novel, Horns, was made into a feature film starring Daniel Radcliffe; his ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Monsters of Templeton

    Try:
    Heart-Shaped Box
    by Joe Hill

We recommend 14 similar authors


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