Rivka Galchen

Rivka Galchen's first novel, Atmospheric Disturbances was published in 2008, winning the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and named as a finalist for the Mercantile Library's John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize, the Canadian Writers' Trust's Fiction Prize and the 2008 Governor General's Award, one of Canada's most prestigious literary prizes. The New Yorker selected Galchen as one of the top "20 Under 40" fiction writers, and in spring 2011 was the Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fiction Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Galchen received her M.D. from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 2003. She is a Contributing Editor at Harper's, and has taught creative writing Columbia University's graduate writing program. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in The New Yorker, Harper's and the New York Times.