Elliott Holt is an American fiction writer and former ad

copywriter Copywriting is the act or occupation of writing text for the purpose of advertising or other forms of marketing. The product, called copy or sales copy, is written content that aims to increase brand awareness and ultimately persuade a person or ...

. In 2013, she published '' You Are One of Them'', a novel based on the true story of

Samantha Smith Samantha Reed Smith (June 29, 1972 – August 25, 1985) was an American peace activist and child actress from Manchester, Maine, who became famous for her anti-war outreaches during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. I ...

Biography

Holt attended

Kenyon College Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio. It was founded in 1824 by Philander Chase. Kenyon College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Kenyon has 1,708 undergraduates enrolled. Its 1,000-acre campus is se ...

as an undergraduate, where she "credits her experiences at Kenyon as a drama major with honing her fiction-writing skills." She then went on to pursue her MFA at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

, where she studied with professors such as

Michael Cunningham Michael Cunningham (born November 6, 1952) is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel '' The Hours'', which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Cunningham is a senior lectur ...

, and received the Hiram Brown award.

Writing

Holt won a 2011

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

for her story "Fem Care" and was the runner-up of the 2011 PEN Emerging Writers Award for her story "The Norwegians." She was also part of

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

's 2012 ''#twitterfiction'' festival. In 2007 ''

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

'' magazine named Holt one of their "Future Writing Stars in New York's Writing Programs". In 2013, Holt published a novel, '' You Are One of Them'', that draws on the true story of

, an American schoolgirl who wrote to

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

premier

Yuri Andropov Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (– 9 February 1984) was the sixth paramount leader of the Soviet Union and the fourth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. After Leonid Brezhnev's 18-year rule, Andropov served in the po ...

at the height of the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

. Smith then visited the Soviet Union on a peace tour but died in a plane crash en route home.Natalie Bakopoulos
'You Are One of Them,' by Elliott Holt
''San Francisco Gate'', June 21, 2013 In Holt’s retelling, the schoolgirl’s childhood friend goes to post-Soviet Russia in search of her friend more than a decade later after hearing her friend may still be alive, having defected to the USSR. The book was widely and favorably reviewed.Max Winte

''The Boston Globe'', June 12, 2013Lidia Jean Kott
Author Elliott Holt Says: 'Go West, Young Woman'
''NPR'', May 18, 2013Maggie Shipstead

''The New York Times'', May 24, 2013

Bibliography

Novels

*'' You Are One of Them''

Short stories

*''Evacuation Instructions'' (2008, ''Bellevue Literary Review'') *''The Norwegians'' (2010, ''Guernica'') *''Fem Care'' (2009, ''Kenyon Review''; reprinted in ''The Pushcart Prize XXXV'' in 2011)

References

External links

@ElliottHolt's #TwitterFiction Story"The Norwegians" by Elliott Holt

"Fem Care" by Elliott Holt
{{DEFAULTSORT:Holt, Elliott Living people 21st-century American novelists American women short story writers American women novelists 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American short story writers Year of birth missing (living people) Brooklyn College alumni Electronic literature writers