Rufi Thorpe
2017 & 2020 Author
Rufi Thorpe grew up in Southern California, whose people, coast lines and real estate listings continue to obsess her. After graduating from Eugene Lang College, she spent some time as a waitress at a poorly run French café before she was accepted as a Henry Hoyns Fellow at the University of Virginia’s MFA program. Years of incredibly depressing waitressing followed before she sold her first novel, The Girls from Corona del Mar, long-listed for the Dylan Thomas and Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. Thorpe’s latest novel, The Knockout Queen, was an Indie Next Pick and a Book of the Month, published in April 2020. She lives with her husband, two sons and insane dog in Los Angeles.
At the Festival
Rufi Thorpe appears in 1 session in the archive.
Episode 6
Aimee Bender met for a virtual conversation with fellow authors Rufi Thorpe and Kevin Wilson to discuss the magic of magical realism, their writing processes, and the human side of their fantastical characters.
Books
Copies of every title are available from Vroman's Bookstore at the festival.
Dear Fang, With Love
Rufi Thorpe is the author of two novels, Dear Fang, With Love, and The Girls from Corona del Mar, which was long listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, MORE, and The Huffington Post. She also writes a bi-monthly humor column, “Listicles For People Exactly Like You," for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. She received her MFA from the University of Virginia in 2009, and currently lives in Southern California with her husband and two sons.
“Tremendous...an absolute winner.”— Publishers Weekly
“A major talent . . . reading her work will bring to mind other writers who deftly control their universes with such clarity and acuity, like Donna Tartt or Ann Patchett”— The Seattle Review of Books