Deesha Philyaw

Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, is a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. The collection focuses on Black women, sex, and the Black church. Deesha is also the co-author of Co-Parenting 101: Helping Your Kids Thrive in Two Households After Divorce, written in collaboration with her ex-husband. Her work has been listed as Notable in the Best American Essays series, and her writing on race, parenting, gender, and culture has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Brevity, dead housekeeping, Apogee Journal, Barrelhouse, Harvard Review, The Baltimore Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. Deesha is a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow.