Awards

Honors for Seeking Fortune Elsewhere:

Oregon Book Award for Fiction, Winner (Ken Kesey Award), 2023

Writers League of Texas Book Awards, Fiction, Winner, 2023

Pen/Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection, Finalist, 2023

Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction, Finalist, 2023

Story Prize, Longlist, 2023

New American Voices Award, Winner, 2023

ALA Carnegie Medal for Excellence, Longlist, 2022

Other Fiction Honors:

Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, Fellow in Fiction, 2023

O. Henry Prize, 2021

Best American Short Stories, Distinguished Stories List, 2021

Sewanee Writers Conference, Scholar in Fiction, 2021

Disquiet Literary Prize, Grand Prize Winner, 2020

Prairie Schooner Raz-Schumaker Book Prize, Finalist, 2020

Kentucky Prose Prize, Runner-Up, 2020

Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, Winner, 2020 (Declined due to book contract)

Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, Finalist, 2020

Rona Jaffe Bread Loaf Scholar, 2019

Keene Prize for Literature, Finalist, 2018 & 2019

Key West Emerging Writer Award, Finalist, 2020 & 2021

Journalism:

Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers, Honorable Mention, 2018

Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellowship, 2020-2021

Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, Grantee, 2020 and 2021

New York Press Club Nellie Bly Award (Best Reporting, Under Three Years of Experience) 2011

Kaiser Family Foundation Fellowship in Health Reporting, 2010-2011

Knight Science Journalism Boot Camp Fellow, 2010

McCloy Fellowship in Journalism, American Council on Germany, 2010

Metcalf Environmental Reporting Fellow, 2009-2010

Kaiser Media Internship in Health Reporting, 2007

Wired Magazine Award for Excellence in Technology Reporting, 2007

AAJA Ken Wong Memorial Scholarship, 2007

Mark Felt Scholarship in Investigative Reporting (full tuition), 2007

SAJA Award, Outstanding Editorial. 2006

Carnegie Mellon Institutional Scholarship, 1998-2002