Paula Saunders grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota. She is a graduate of the Syracuse University creative writing program, and was awarded a postgraduate Albert Schweitzer Fellowship at the State University of New York at Albany, under then-Schweitzer chair Toni Morrison. Her Festival book, The Distance Home, was recently longlisted for the Center of Fiction’s First Novel Prize. She lives in California with her husband. They have two grown daughters.

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Reviews of The Distance Home:

• “Saunders debuts with a penetrating and insightful deconstruction of a Midwestern family” – In Publishers Weekly
• “A grim, haunting parable of split child-rearing in which the dark blots out much of the light” – In Kirkus Reviews
• “Saunders skillfully illuminates how time heals certain wounds while deepening others, and her depiction of aging is viscerally affecting” – In the New York Times

Interviews and Articles:

• “Aggression seemed to be a necessary push-back against so much worry and concern, both economic and personal” – In Lit Hub
• “Set in Rapid City, South Dakota, in the 1960s, The Distance Home tells the story of psychological trauma in a seemingly normal, working-class Midwestern family” – In BookPage