{{short description|American novelist}} {{infobox writer |name=Stacey Levine |image=ClearCutPress-StaceyLevine-PS1.jpg |caption= |birth_place=St. Louis, Missouri, USA |occupation={{flatlist| *novelist *short story author *journalist *college writing instructor }} |nationality= |alma_mater=University of Missouri<br>University of Washington |awards=Stranger Genius Award<br>PEN Literary Award for Fiction
|website={{URL|https://www.staceylevine.com}} }} '''Stacey Levine''' is an American novelist, short story author, and journalist. She has been called "one of the most interesting writers working in America today,"<ref>{{Cite news |last=Beachy |first=Stephen |date=September 28, 2005 |title=Leaving Munson (review of ''Frances Johnson'')|work=San Francisco Bay Guardian |url=https://archive.org/details/bayguardian39brug_52/page/14/mode/2up?q=%22stacey+levine%22 |access-date=November 25, 2024}}</ref> "a gifted performance artist of literary fiction, part French existentialist and part comic bomb-thrower,"<ref>{{cite news |last=Millet |first=Lydia |date=April 15, 2024 |title='Mice 1961' is set in 1961 but isn't about rodents |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/04/15/mice-1961-stacey-levine-review/ |work=Washington Post |location= |access-date=November 26, 2024}}</ref> and her writing has been described as "unlike anything else . . . vivid and preternaturally alert to the strangeness of the human condition."<ref>[https://www.amazon.com/Mice-1961-Stacey-Levine/dp/1959163019/ Kelly Link on ''Mice 1961'', cited on Amazon detail page]. Retrieved November 24, 2024.</ref> Reviewing her 2011 story collection ''The Girl with Brown Fur'', Donna Seaman summed up Levine's writing thus:<br> {{Blockquote |text=Stacey Levine ignores lyricism as an evolutionary dead end. Life is fractious and dire, her prose style says; let fiction serve as razor and torch. It's not that Levine isn't funny or that she doesn't forge phrases and sentences of throat-clutching beauty. It's just that her effort to dissect humankind's propensity for neuroses, fallacies, and other inanities requires measured drollery and surgical concision.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Seaman |first1=Donna |last2= |first2= |date=June 2009|title=The Girl with Brown Fur|url=https://www.bookforum.com/print/1602/the-girl-with-brown-fur-tales-and-stories-by-stacey-levine-3840 |journal=Bookforum |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages= |doi=|access-date=November 25, 2024}}</ref> }}
==Biography== Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Levine attended the University of Missouri journalism school and the University of Washington. She has published three novels and two story collections, and her stories and criticism have appeared in numerous journals, including ''Fence'', ''The Iowa Review'', ''Tin House'', ''Bookforum'', ''The Brooklyn Rail'', ''Nest: A Quarterly of Interiors'', ''The Seattle Times'', ''The Stranger'', and ''YETI''. She lives in Seattle, where she teaches at Seattle Central College.
==Career== Levine's debut story collection, ''My Horse and Other Stories,'' was published in 1993 by Sun & Moon Press, and won the 1994 PEN Literary Award for Fiction.<ref>[https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb4335770s/_2.pdf 1994 PEN Literary Awards, press release, 13 May 1994], accessed 25 Nov 2024.</ref> “Levine's prose is compelling and intriguing and risky,” wrote the ''Review of Contemporary Fiction'',<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Weaser |first1=Angela |last2= |first2= |date=Spring 1994|title=My Horse and Other Stories|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_review-of-contemporary-fiction_1994_14_index |journal=Review of Contemporary Fiction |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=221–222 |doi=|access-date=November 25, 2024}}</ref> while ''Exquisite Corpse'' noted: "Because something very similar to this once happened to you, you should read this book. There is a secret for your eyes only inside."<ref>Cited on back cover of ''Dra—'' (Sun & Moon Press, 1997).</ref>
Levine's first novel, ''Dra—'' (Sun & Moon Press, 1997), “turns that most banal of activities, the search for a job, into a nightmarish pilgrimage of regression and lost selfhood.” It was praised as “both haunting and laugh-out-loud funny,” for its "beautiful, arresting prose," and for the author's ability to “put the emotional violence of human relations under a high‑power microscope.”<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Eldredge |first1=Kristy |last2= |first2= |date=Spring 1999|title=Dra—|url=http://www.thirdcoastmagazine.com/archives/99spr/ |journal=Third Coast |volume= |issue=8 |pages= |doi=|access-date=November 25, 2024}}</ref> ''Publishers Weekly'' claimed it combined “the dreamlike pace of ''Alice in Wonderland'', the darkly comic tones of a Kafka novel, and a landscape reminiscent of 1984.”<ref>{{cite magazine |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Dra— |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781557132888 |magazine=Publishers Weekly |location= |publisher= |date=July 31, 1997 |access-date=November 25, 2024}}</ref>
''Frances Johnson'', Levine's second novel (Clear Cut Press, 2005), is set in Munson, a fictional Florida hamlet where “a volcano seethes on the outskirts of town, strange animals skitter in the shadows, and a dense brown fog has settled overhead. . . . The story follows Frances's mounting restlessness, as she must decide whether to take control of her life or cede it to the murky future the community has designated for her.”<ref>{{cite journal |last1= McCloskey |first1= Caroline |last2= |first2= |date=December 5, 2005|title=Frances Johnson|url= |journal=Time Out New York |volume= |issue=531 |pages= |doi=|access-date=}}.</ref> ''The Believer'' described the novel as “a comedy of manners,” and discerned “an inkling of Austen in Levine's delicate and deadpan assault on our culture's heterosexist, heterogeneous dictates. But the feel of the novel is more fanciful than programmatic," reviewer Jason McBride noted. "Each sentence operates in the same manner as the overarching narrative: shifting shape, defying expectation.”<ref>{{cite journal |last1=McBride |first1=Jason |last2= |first2= |date=March 1, 2006|title=A Review of: Frances Johnson by Stacey Levine—|url=https://www.thebeliever.net/stacey-levines-frances-johnson/ |journal=The Believer |volume= |issue=32 |pages= |doi=|access-date=November 26, 2024}}</ref>
A second story collection, ''The Girl with Brown Fur: Tales & Stories'', was published in 2011 by Starcherone Books. In the ''Los Angeles Review of Books'', reviewer Stephanie Barbe Hammer praised its “abundance of beautiful strangeness” and noted its formal range, from fairytale to metafiction to “prose-poem sketches,” observing that “the narrative language throughout . . . is crystalline and intensely elegant, often at comic odds with the terse speech of the characters themselves.”<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hammer |first1=Stephanie Barbe |last2= |first2= |date=Fall 2012|title=''The Girl with Brown Fur'' |url=https://stephaniebarbehammer.net/books/book-reviews/ |journal=Los Angeles Review of Books |volume= |issue=12 |pages= |doi=|access-date=November 26, 2024}}</ref> Couched within Levine's “strange fables,” wrote Kristy Eldredge, are “recognizable hurts and self-defeating desires. The way she writes about such things is what makes her fiction the elegant, precise and transcendent wonderland it is.”<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://htmlgiant.com/reviews/the-girl-with-brown-fur-by-stacey-levine/ |title=The Girl with Brown Fur by Stacey Levine |last=Eldredge |first=Kristy |date=May 13, 2011 |website=HTMLGiant |publisher= |access-date=November 26, 2024 |quote=}}</ref>
Reviewing Levine's third novel, ''Mice 1961'' (Verse Chorus Press, 2024), in the ''Washington Post'', Lydia Millet highlighted “something singular to Levine's writing: a brilliant chemistry of alienation and familiarity I've never seen anywhere else” that elicited from her “a startled, delighted laughter.”<ref>{{cite news |last=Millet |first=Lydia |date=April 15, 2024 |title='Mice 1961' is set in 1961 but isn't about rodents |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/04/15/mice-1961-stacey-levine-review/ |work=Washington Post |location= |access-date=November 26, 2024}}</ref> Alvin Lu called it “a subtly observed novel of manners, a cross between Jane Bowles and Jane Austen” couched in “remarkable language,”<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/mice1961/ |title=Mice 1961 & Prison Mars |last=Lu |first=Alvin |date=July 29, 2024 |website=3:AM Magazine |publisher= |access-date=November 26, 2024 |quote=}}</ref> while Garielle Lutz has stated that “''Mice 1961'' is as enchanting a novel—and as excitingly original, as tunefully phrased, and as discomposingly hilarious—as anything I can ever hope to read. Few writers are ever this alive to language and this tender toward the lot of the vividly different among us. I am in awe.”<ref>Garielle Lutz, cited on back cover of ''Mice 1961'' (Verse Chorus Press, 2024)</ref>
Levine has collaborated with graphic novelist David Lasky on comics projects, and with illustrator Chuk Baldock, with whom she published the chapbook ''JFK vs. Predator'' in 2023. In addition she has written a radio play, ''The Post Office'' (1996), with music composed by Lori Goldston,<ref>{{cite podcast |url=https://podtail.com/podcast/artist-of-the-week-podcast/stacey-levine-and-lori-goldston-the-post-office/ |title=Stacey Levine and Lori Goldston, ''The Post Office'' |website=podtail.com |publisher= |host= |date= |time= |access-date=November 26, 2024}}</ref> and a one-act play, ''Susan Moneymaker, Large and Small'', which was published as a chapbook by the Brooklyn-based Belladonna Series and produced in Seattle. She also wrote the libretto for a puppet opera, ''The Wreck of the St. Nikolai'', with music by Lori Goldston (cello) and Kyle Hanson (accordion) and mis-en-scene by Eve Cohen and Curtis Taylor,<ref>[https://vodvil.org/wreck-of-the-st-nickolai ''The Wreck of the St. Nikolai (an opera for objects)'']</ref> which was staged in Seattle by On the Boards in 2006.<ref>{{cite news|last=Borchert |first=Gavin |date=October 9, 2006 |title=''The Wreck of the St. Nikolai'' |url=https://www.seattleweekly.com/arts/king-lear-the-wreck-of-the-st-nikolai-and-bash/ |work=Seattle Weekly |location= |access-date=November 26, 2024}}</ref>
==Awards and recognition== Levine received a Stranger Genius Award for Literature in 2009,<ref>{{cite news|last=Constant |first=Paul |date=September 30, 2009 |title=Stacey Levine Is the Proud Owner of a Sheet Cake |url=https://www.thestranger.com/books/2009/09/30/2363026/stacey-levine-is-the-proud-owner-of-a-sheet-cake |work=The Stranger |location=Seattle |access-date=November 26, 2024}}</ref> and two of her books have been finalists for the Washington State Book Award in Fiction. She has received a PEN Literary Award for Fiction<ref>{{cite news|last=Herzog |first=Mary Susan |date=June 11, 1996 |title=Taking PEN in Hand |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-06-11-ls-13655-story.html |work=Los Angeles Times |location=|access-date=November 26, 2024}}</ref> and various writing grants and fellowships.
Her novel ''Mice 1961'' was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.<ref>{{cite news |author1=Alexandra AlterJoumana Khatib and Gregory Cowles |title=Pulitzer Prizes 2025: A Guide to the Winning Books and Finalists |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/books/pulitzer-prizes-books-winners-finalists.html |access-date=2025-05-06 |work=The New York Times |date=2025-05-05}}</ref>
==Works== ===Novels=== * {{cite book |title=Dra—|location=Los Angeles|publisher=Sun & Moon Press|year=1997|isbn= 9781557132888}} New edition: Portland, Oregon: Verse Chorus Press. 2011. ISBN 9781891241314.<ref>[https://www.versechorus.com/dra ''Dra—'', detail page, Verse Chorus Press], Retrieved November 24, 2024.</ref> * {{cite book |title=Frances Johnson|location=Astoria, WA|publisher=Clear Cut Press|year=2005|isbn= 9780972323468}} New edition: Portland, Oregon: Verse Chorus Press. 2010. ISBN 9781891241291.<ref>[https://www.versechorus.com/frances-johnson ''Frances Johnson'', detail page, Verse Chorus Press], Retrieved November 24, 2024.</ref> * {{cite book |title=Mice 1961|location=Portland, OR|publisher=Verse Chorus Press|year=2024|isbn= 9781959163015}}.<ref>[https://www.versechorus.com/mice1961 ''Mice 1961'', detail page, Verse chorus Press], Retrieved November 24, 2024.</ref>
===Story collections=== * {{cite book |title=My Horse and Other Stories|location=Los Angeles|publisher=Sun & Moon Press|year=1994|isbn= 9781557131249}} * {{cite book |title=The Girl with Brown Fur: Tales & Stories|location=Buffalo, NY|publisher=Starcherone|year=2011|isbn= 9780984213344}}
===Chapbooks=== * {{cite book |title=Susan Moneymaker, Large and Small ''(one-act play)''|location=Brooklyn, NY|publisher=Belladonna*|year=2005|isbn=}}<ref>[https://www.belladonnaseries.org/chaplets/p/109-stacey-levine-susan-moneymaker-large-and-small?rq=stacey%20levine ''Susan Moneymaker, Large and Small'', Belladonna Chapbook Series, No. 109], Retrieved November 24, 2024.</ref> * {{cite book |title=He Wanted All Galenans to Know He Was Real|location=New York|publisher=Louffa Press|year=2013|isbn=}} * {{cite book |title=JFK vs. Predator ''(with illustrations by Chuk Baldock)''|location=Seattle, WA|publisher=New Pacific Press|year=2022|isbn=}}<ref>[https://newpacificpress.bigcartel.com/product/jfk-vs-predator ''JFK vs. Predator'', New Pacific Press Chapbook Series #3], Retrieved November 24, 2024.</ref>
===Spoken Word=== *'Sweethearts' (split 7-inch single). Kill Rock Stars (Wordcore Vol. 2). 1991. KRS-102.
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.staceylevine.com Stacey Levine: author's website] *[https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/bookworm/stacey-levine Stacey Levine interviewed by Michael Silverblatt on KCRW's ''Bookworm'' (audio)] *[http://pistilreadings.blogspot.com/2008/05/stacey-levine_15.html#intro Stacey Levine reading two stories at Pistil Books (audio)]
:Fiction online :* [http://www.goldenhandcuffsreview.com/gh14content/Levine.pdf "They Only Liked and Enjoyed Lesser People" (''Golden Handcuffs Review'')] :* [https://www.thestranger.com/seattle/conference-center-romance/Content?oid=18871965 "Conference Center Romance" (''The Stranger'')]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levine, Stacey}} Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers Category:20th-century American novelists Category:21st-century American novelists Category:20th-century American short story writers Category:21st-century American short story writers Category:20th-century American women novelists Category:21st-century American women novelists Category:American women journalists Category:American women short story writers Category:Novelists from Missouri Category:Novelists from Washington (state) Category:University of Missouri alumni Category:University of Washington alumni Category:Writers from Seattle Category:Writers from St. Louis