Helen Phillips is the author of six books, including the novel HUM (August 2024) and the novel THE NEED, a National Book Award nominee and a New York Times Notable Book. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, and the Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction. Her collection SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS received the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Her novel THE BEAUTIFUL BUREAUCRAT, a New York Times Notable Book, was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her collection AND YET THEY WERE HAPPY was named a notable collection by the Story Prize and re-released in 2023. She is also the author of the children's adventure novel HERE WHERE THE SUNBEAMS ARE GREEN. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic and the New York Times, and on Selected Shorts. She is an associate professor at Brooklyn College.