Julie Schumacher is the author of a dozen books, including the national best-seller, Dear Committee Members, winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. She is the first woman to have won the Thurber Prize.

Schumacher’s first published story, “Reunion,” was written to fulfill an undergraduate writing assignment (“tell a family tale”); it was reprinted in The Best American Short Stories 1983. Subsequent stories and essays were published in The Atlantic, The New York Times, MS, The Chronicle for Higher Education, Prize Stories: The O.Henry Awards, and other venues.

Her first novel, The Body Is Water, was an ALA Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. She has also published five novels for young adults and a satirical coloring book, Doodling for Academics.

Schumacher lives in St. Paul and is a Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches in the Creative Writing Program and the Department of English. She has won multiple teaching awards and has been recognized as a “Scholar of the College.”