Sophie Newman was born in Berkeley, California and raised on the Monterey Peninsula. She holds a BA in English from Rice University and an MFA in fiction from The Ohio State University, where she was a Distinguished University Fellow and taught undergraduate creative writing. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Writer’s Digest, The American Scholar, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 2024 Great American Fiction Contest from The Saturday Evening Post and has received support from the Inprint Foundation, the Breadloaf Writers’ Conferences, Yefe Nof, and Community of Writers. By day, she’s a ghostwriter, editor, and educator. In previous years, she’s worked on the marketing team for Brené Brown and as a trail guide on horseback in California and Portugal. She lives in Los Angeles with her partner and rescue pup, where she’s also at work on a novel.