Berkley Center

Ayana Mathis is a novelist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (2012), her first novel, was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, an NPR Best Book of the Year, and a selection for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club 2.0. Ayana taught fiction writing as visiting faculty at the Iowa Writer's Workshop and is currently teaching at The Writer's Foundry M.F.A. Program at St. Joseph's College, Brooklyn. She contributed to the New Yorker's Memorial coverage of Nelson Mandela and her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Financial Times and The Atlantic. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.