Mary Otis is the author of the novel, Burst (Zibby Books), which is longlisted for the 2024 Joyce Carol Oates Prize and won the 2023 Silver Medal in Literary Fiction from the Independent Book Publisher Awards. Burst was chosen by Good Morning America, the New York Post and Orange County Register as one of the Best Books of Spring 2023. Mary has also published a short story collection, Yes, Yes, Cherries (Tin House). Her stories and essays have been published in Best New American Voices, Tin House, Electric Literature, McSweeney’s, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and in many literary journals and numerous anthologies. She has recently published poetry in Zyzzyva and the Bennington Review. The New York Times has said of her work, “Sadness and humor sidle up to each other, evocative of the delicate balance of melancholy and wit found in Lorrie Moore’s stories.” Her story "Pilgrim Girl" received an Honorable Mention for the Pushcart Prize, and her story "Unstruck" was a Distinguished Story of the Year in Best American Short Stories.  She was a Walter Dakin Fellow and received a Getty Foundation Scholarship. Mary has read her work at Lincoln Center and was filmed for the PBS Program “Brief but Spectacular.” She attended Bennington College and previously taught creative writing in the UCLA Writers’ Program in addition to numerous writing conferences. Mary was a founding fiction professor in the UC Riverside Low-Residency MFA Program where she taught for twelve years. Originally from the Boston area, Mary lives in Los Angeles.