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Lilly Dancyger

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Lilly Dancyger is an American author born in New York. She is the author of First Love: Essays on Friendship and Negative Space, and editor of the anthology Burn It Down: Women Writing About Anger. Her essays have been published by The New York Times,[1] Elle,[2] Slate,[3] and Brevity,[4] among other outlets. She writes the newsletter The Word Cave.[5]

Dancyger received an Artist Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts,[6] and was named a "Writer to Watch" by BookPage.[7] Her memoir Negative Space was selected by Carmen Maria Machado as a winner of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards.[8]

Early life and education

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Dancyger grew up in New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. She dropped out of Bard High School Early College at the age of 14[9] and earned a GED. She later graduated from Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts with a BA in Literary Studies and received an MA in Journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Career

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Dancyger was the Memoir Editor at Narratively from 2014-2020,[10] during which time she also worked as a freelance journalist, writing for outlets such as Rolling Stone,[11] Glamour,[12] The Cut,[13] and others.

Her 2021 memoir Negative Space details her investigation into her father's life, who had an addiction to heroin and died prematurely, through the art he created.[14] Gabino Iglesias from NPR and Claire Rudy Foster from The Rumpus both praised the work's nonlinear narrative and exploration of grief.[15][16]

Ann Levin from Associated Press described her 2024 work First Love: Essays on Friendship as "vivid, thoughtful, and nuanced."[17] Julia Shipley from The Philadelphia Inquirer also gave the collection a positive review.[18]

She currently teaches creative nonfiction in the MFA programs at Randolph College[19] and Columbia University School of the Arts.[20]

Bibliography

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References

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  1. ^ Dancyger, Lilly (September 17, 2024). "Learning to Connect With Friends — Without Alcohol". The New York Times. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  2. ^ Dancyger, Lilly (August 4, 2024). "We Need to Talk About Our Ex-Best Friends". elle.com. Elle. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  3. ^ Dancyger, Lilly (May 2, 2024). "On Murder Memoirs". slate.com. Slate. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  4. ^ Dancyger, Lilly (January 30, 2024). "Looking at an Eclipse: A Braided Essay About Braided Essays". brevity.wordpress.com. Brevity Blog. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  5. ^ "The Word Cave". substack.com. Substack. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  6. ^ Aronoff, Amy (September 19, 2023). "Introducing 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellows, Finalists, and Panelists". nyfa.org. New York Foundation for the Arts. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  7. ^ "Writers to watch: 10 women on the rise". bookpage.com. BookPage. March 1, 2021. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  8. ^ "The SFWP Awards Judged by Deesha Philyaw". sfwp.com. Santa Fe Writers Project. Retrieved February 6, 2025.
  9. ^ Dancyger, Lilly (April 26, 2021). "Coming Home to Somewhere Unfamiliar". Guernica. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  10. ^ Lillibridge, Lara (October 8, 2023). "INTERVIEW: Lilly Dancyger, Writer, Editor, Teacher". Hippocampus Magazine. Retrieved February 6, 2025.
  11. ^ "Lilly Dancyger". rollingstone.com. Rolling Stone. Retrieved February 6, 2025.
  12. ^ "Lilly Dancyger". glamour.com. Glamour Magazine. Retrieved February 6, 2025.
  13. ^ Dancyger, Lilly (October 15, 2017). "The New Alternative to 'Female Viagra' Is Zapping the Brain". The Cut. Retrieved February 6, 2025.
  14. ^ VanDenburgh, Barbara (2021-04-26). "Nonfiction runs the gamut, plus Lahiri's 'Whereabouts'". USA Today. p. 14. Retrieved 2025-04-24.
  15. ^ Iglesias, Gabino (May 5, 2021). "A Daughter Rediscovers Her Deceased Father's Life In 'Negative Space'". NPR. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  16. ^ Foster, Claire Rudy (2021-06-02). "Both of These Things Are True: Negative Space by Lilly Dancyger". The Rumpus. Retrieved 2025-04-24.
  17. ^ Levin, Ann (May 5, 2021). "Book Review: Memoirist Lilly Dancyger's penetrating essays explore the power of female friendships". AP. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  18. ^ Shipley, Julia (2024-12-21). "Best Philly nonfiction books to gift this year". The Philadelphia Inquirer. pp. B8. Retrieved 2025-04-24.
  19. ^ "Faculty". randolphcollege.edu. Randolph College. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  20. ^ "School of the Arts Directory". arts.columbia.edu. Columbia University. Retrieved February 5, 2025.
  21. ^ "First Love by Lilly Dancyger: 9780593447574 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2025-04-24.
  22. ^ "Negative Space | Lilly Dancyger". Santa Fe Writers Project. Retrieved 2025-04-24.
  23. ^ Dancyger, Lilly (2019-02-05). Burn It Down. Basic Books. ISBN 978-1-58005-894-0.
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