ALLISON AMEND was born in Chicago, Illinois, on a day when the Cubs beat the Mets 2-0. In high school, Allison lived for a year with a Spanish family in Barcelona. She attended Stanford University, graduating with honors in Comparative Literature. After college, she lived in Lyon, France on a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship. Allison then attended the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, receiving a Maytag and a Teaching/Writing Fellowship.

Allison’s debut short story collection, Things That Pass for Love (OV/Dzanc Books, 2008) won a bronze Independent Publisher’s award. Stations West, a historical novel, was published by Louisiana State University Press as part of its Yellow Shoe Fiction series in March 2010 and was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Oklahoma Book Award.

Nan A. Talese/Doubleday published her most recent novels A Nearly Perfect Copy and Enchanted Islands.

Allison lives in New York City, where she teaches creative writing at Lehman College in the Bronx and at the Red Earth MFA.