Masters of the American Short Story
Featured writers: Lauren Groff and John Stauffer
A conversation about writing short stories, with three-time National Book Award finalist Lauren Groff and John Stauffer, editor of the American Short Story anthology from Library of America. They discuss the form, Lauren’s new collection Brawler, and the history of short stories in America. Moderated by author and professor Peter Coviello.
Book signing times (all signings take place in the First Floor Lobby of the library)
🖊️Lauren Groff: 2:00 – 2:20
🖊️John Stauffer: 2:00 – 2:20
About the writers:
PETER COVIELLO is the author of six books, including Make Yourselves Gods, a finalist for the 2020 John Whitmer Historical Association Best Book Prize, and Long Players, a memoir selected as one of ARTFORUM’s Best Books of 2018. His newest book, Is There God After Prince?: Dispatches from an Age of Last Things, was selected for The Millions’ “Most Anticipated” list for 2023. He is Professor and Head of English at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
LAUREN GROFF is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies, Matrix, and The Vaster Wilds, and the celebrated short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won the Story Prize and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2024 she was named one of the “TIME 100 most influential people.” Groff’s work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, where she and her husband run an independent bookstore, The Lynx.
JOHN STAUFFER is the Kates Professor of English at Harvard and the author/co-author of 20 books and 100+ articles, including Picturing Frederick Douglass; GIANTS: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln; Battle Hymn of the Republic; and Black Hearts of Men. He has co-curated several exhibitions: ONE LIFE, FREDERICK DOUGLASS (NPG); WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY (MFA Houston); DJANGO UNCHAINED; RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2; RECONSTRUCTION; BLACK PATRIOTS; GOD IN AMERICA; and LOVER OF MEN. He received three teaching awards at Harvard. His two-volume The American Short Story: The Nineteenth Century was published in January 2026 with Library of America.
The American Short Story: The Nineteenth Century
edited by John Stauffer
A landmark short story collection: More than 100 short stories by 51 different 19th-century writers redefine the great American literary form. Incudes both literary masterpieces—including classic stories by Poe, Hawthorne, Twain, James, and Wharton—and new rediscoveries.
Brawler: Stories
by Lauren Groff
A stunning, fierce collection from a master of the short story and one of the most important writers of our time. Read alone, each story in Lauren Groff’s electric collection is an individual triumph, bold, agile, and packed with power. Read together, they hum in exhilarating resonance. Ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moving across age, class, and region—from New England to Florida to California—these nine stories reflect and expand upon a shared theme: the ceaseless battle between humans’ dark and light angels.