Amina Gautier
Mary Routt Chair of Writing
Pronouns: She/Her/Ella
Personal Website:
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Biography
A fiction writer and a scholar of American literature, Amina Gautier was the 2021 Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation Special Fellow at Fondazione Bogliasco, a 2022-2023 Mellon Foundation/Flamboyán Foundation Letras Boricuas Fellow, the 2023-2024 AMUW Chair in Humanistic Studies at Marquette University and is the Spring 2026 Mary Routt Chair in Writing ¶¶ŇőĘÓƵ College.
Gautier is the author of four award-winning short story collections: The Best That You Can Do (2024), which won the Soft Skull-Kimbilio Publishing Prize, three International Latino Book Awards, the Midwest MLA Award, a Florida Book Award Silver Medal, a Silver Medal “IPPY” Award for Short Story Fiction, Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award Honorable Mention, and was a Finalist for the Housatonic Book Award and the Big Other Book Award, and was Longlisted for The Joyce Carol Oates Prize and The Story Prize; The Loss of All Lost Things (2016), which won the Elixir Press Award in Fiction, The Phillis Wheatley Award, The International Latino Book Award, The National Indie Excellence Award, a Silver Medal “IPPY” Award in Northeast Fiction, and was a Finalist for the Paterson Prize, The John Gardner Award, The Hurston/Wright Award, and shortlisted for the William Saroyan Award, and The St. Francis College Literary Prize; Now We Will Be Happy (2014), which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, the International Latino Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Legacy Award, a Silver IPPY Award in Multicultural Fiction, a Florida Authors and Publishers Association Award Gold Medal in Short Fiction, and was Longlisted for The Chautauqua Prize in Fiction; and At-Risk (2011), which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and received an Eric Hoffer Legacy Award and a First Horizon Award. For her body of work, Gautier has received the Blackwell Prize, the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award, and the Pen/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story.
Gautier has published more than one hundred fifty short stories. Her fiction appears in AGNI, American Short Fiction, Boston Review, Callaloo, Cincinnati Review, Latino Book Review, Los Angeles Review, Oxford American, Southern Review, and TriQuarterly, among other places. Gautier’s awards for her individual short stories include the Able Muse Prize in Fiction, the Anton Chekhov Prize for Very Short Fiction, the Craft Flash Fiction Prize, the Crazyhorse Prize, the Danahy Fiction Prize, the Rick DeMarinis Prize, the Jack Dyer Prize, the Lamar York Prize in Fiction, the New Millennium Writings Flash Fiction Prize, the Raleigh Review Flash Fiction Prize, the River Styx Schlafly Microfiction Award, and the William Richey Prize. Gautier’s work has been reprinted in All About Skin! Women Writers of Color; Best African American Fiction 2009; Best African American Fiction 2010; Borderlands & Crossroads: Writing the Motherland; Choose Wisely: 35 Women Up to No Good; The Danahy Fiction Prize: Ten Years Ten Stories 2007-2017; Discoveries: New Writing from The Iowa Review; Forward 21st Century Flash Fiction Anthology; Home in Florida: LatinX Writers and The Literature of Uprootedness; The Line-Up: 20 Provocative Women Writers; Love in the Time of Time’s Up; New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2008; On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library; The Notre Dame Review: The First Ten Years; The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Contemporary Women Writers on Forerunners in Fiction; Voices; What’s Next?:Short Fiction in Time of Change, and Welcome to The Neighborhood.
Gautier has received fellowships and residencies from the American Antiquarian Society, Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, Callaloo, the Camargo Foundation, the Chateau de Lavigny, Flamboyán Foundation, Fondazione Bogliasco, Hawthornden, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Kimbilio, Le Maison Dora Maar, the MacDowell Colony, the Mellon Foundation, the Ragdale Foundation, the Sewanee Writer’s Conference, the Social Science Research Council, VCCA, Vermont Studio Center, Ucross Foundation, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.
Her research has appeared in Approaches to Teaching Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Approaches to Teaching South Asian Anglophone Diasporic Literature, The Cambridge Companion to The American Short Story, Critical Insights: Frederick Douglass, Daedalus, and Libraries and Culture, and is forthcoming in the Oxford Handbook of African American Humor Studies, Approaches to Teaching Post-1945 Short Fiction from the United States, and Approaches to Teaching the Works of Colson Whitehead. Gautier is a native of Brooklyn, NY.
Academic History
- B.A./MA, Stanford University
- M.A. University of Pennsylvania
- Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Academic Focus
Creative writing – fiction; 19th-21st century African American literature; American literature, the long nineteenth century; Charles Chesnutt studies; contemporary short fiction; multi-ethnic American literature.
Courses Taught
- Special Topics in Fiction
Books
The Best That You Can Do. Soft Skull Press, Soft Skull x Kimbilio Prize in Fiction, 2024.
The Loss of All Lost Things. Elixir Press, Elixir Prize in Fiction, 2016.
Now We Will Be Happy. University of Nebraska Press, Prairie Schooner Book Series Prize in Fiction, 2014.
At-Risk. University of Georgia Press, Flannery O’Connor Award in Short Fiction Series, 2011.
Selected Research and Publications
“A Temporary Matter: Jhumpa Lahiri and Creative Writing Pedagogy.” Approaches to Teaching Anglophone South Asian Diasporic Literature. (2024):287-293. Modern Language Association of America, Eds. Nalini Iyer and Pallavi Rastogi.
“A Pivotal Text: Teaching Incidents in Narratives of Slavery.” Approaches to Teaching Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. (2024): 99-104. Modern Language Association of America, Ed. Lynn Domina.
“The African American Short Story from Reform to Renaissance.” The Cambridge Companion to the American Short Story. (2023): 206-220. Cambridge University Press, Ed. Gavin Jones.
“Making the American Self and the Self-Made Man in The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass and Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography.” Critical Insights: Frederick Douglass. (2020): 151-167. Salem Press, Ed. Jericho Williams.
“Introduction to Feature on African American Women Writers.” Pleiades. Special Issue on African American Women Writers. 38.2 (2018): 85-86. Gautier, Amina. Ed. and Intro.
“On Post-racial America in the Age of Obama.” Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 140.1 (2011): 90-94. MIT Press.
“African American Women’s Writings in the Woman’s Building Library.” Libraries and Culture. 41.1 (2006): 55-81. University of Texas Press.
Awards and Honors
BODY OF WORK
The Blackwell Prize, 2022.
The PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, 2018.
The Chicago Public Library Foundation 21st Century Award, 2016.
AWARDS FOR BOOKS
International Latino Book Award, Gold Medal, The Isabel Allende Most Inspirational Fiction Book Award – English, for The Best That You Can Do, 2025.
International Latino Book Award, Silver Medal, Best Collection of Short Stories – English, for The Best That You Can Do, 2025.
International Latino Book Award, Bronze Medal, The Rudolfo Anaya Best Latino Focused Fiction Book Award – English, for The Best That You Can Do, 2025.
National Silver Medal IPPY Award in Short Story Fiction, for The Best That You Can Do, 2025.
The Florida Book Award Silver Medal in General Fiction, for The Best That You Can Do, 2025.
The Midwest Modern Language Association Book Award, for The Best That You Can Do, 2024.
The Soft Skull x Kimbilio Fiction Prize, for The Best That You Can Do, 2023.
The Eric Hoffer Legacy Fiction Award, for Now We Will Be Happy, 2018.
National Indie Excellence Award, Short Story Category, for The Loss of All Lost Things, 2018.
The International Latino Book Award, Most Inspirational Fiction Book, for The Loss of All Lost Things, 2017.
The Phillis Wheatley Book Award in Fiction, The Loss of All Lost Things, 2017.
National Silver Medal IPPY Award in Northeast Fiction, for The Loss of All Lost Things 2017.
The International Latino Book Award, Most Inspirational Fiction Book, for Now We Will Be Happy, 2016.
The Royal Palm Literary Award in Literary Fiction, for The Loss of All Lost Things, 2016.
The Florida Authors and Publishers Association Presidents Book Award, Gold Medal in Literary Fiction, for The Loss of All Lost Things, 2016.
The Florida Authors and Publishers Association Presidents Book Award, Silver Medal in General Fiction, for The Loss of All Lost Things, 2016.
The Florida Authors and Publishers Association Presidents Book Award, Gold Medal in Short Fiction, for The Loss of All Lost Things, 2016.
National Silver Medal IPPY Award in Multicultural Fiction, for Now We Will Be Happy, 2016.
The Eric Hoffer Legacy Fiction Award, for At-Risk, 2015.
The Eric Hoffer First Horizon Award, for At-Risk, 2015.
The Florida Authors and Publishers Association Presidents Book Award Gold Medal in Short Fiction, for Now We Will Be Happy, 2015.
The Elixir Pres Award in Fiction, for The Loss of All Lost Things, 2014.
The Prairie Schooner Book Series Prize, for Now We Will Be Happy, 2013.
The Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, for At-Risk, 2010.
AWARDS FOR INDIVIDUAL STORIES
New Millennium Writings Flash Fiction Award, for “Persephone,” 2022.
Craft Flash Fiction Award, for “What the Mouth Knows,” 2022.
Able Muse Write Prize in Fiction, for “We Ask Why,” 2021.
Chicago Writers Association, Summer Flash Contest, Second Prize, for “That Island,” 2021.
Raleigh Review Flash Fiction Prize, for “Monument,” 2020.
Sycamore Review Black Trans Award, for “Karen,” 2020.
Anton Chekhov Very Short Fiction Award, for “Pursed,” 2020.
Rick DeMarinis Short Story Award, Cutthroat Magazine, for “Clave,” 2019.
The Lamar York Prize for Fiction, for “Bodega,” 2013.
The Crazyhorse Editor’s Prize for Fiction, for “Candidate,” 2012.
Glimmer Train Fiction Open, Glimmer Train Stories, Third Prize, for “Aguanile,” 2012.
Zoetrope— All Story Fiction Contest, Zoetrope—All Story, Second Prize, for “Now We Will Be Happy,” 2011.
The Schlafly Micro-brew Micro-fiction Prize, for “Minnow,” 2009
The Danahy Fiction Prize, for “A Cup of My Time,” 2009.
The Jack Dyer Award in Fiction, for “How to Make Flan,” 2006.
Juniper Creek Fiction Contest, Third Prize, for “Girl of Wisdom,” 2005.
New Century Writing Fiction Contest, New Century Writing, Second Prize, for “A Recipe for Curry,” 2003.
The William Richey Prize in Fiction, for “Make Me Over,” 2002.
Celebration of Black Writing Fiction Prize, for “A Recipe for Curry,” 2002.
Potpourri Short-short Fiction Prize, for “Value Judgments,” 2002.