Zuwena "ZZ" Packer (born January 12, 1973) is an American writer, primarily of works of short fiction, and teacher. She is the recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, the Whiting Award, and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Her book Drinking Coffee Elsewhere won the Commonwealth First Fiction Award and an ALEX award. It became a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner award and was selected for the Today Show Book Club by John Updike. In 2006, she was named a 5 Under 35 Honoree by the National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2026-05-06.
Early life and education Born in Chicago, Illinois, Packer grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and Louisville, Kentucky. "ZZ" was a childhood nickname; her given name is Zuwena. Packer enjoyed reading from a young age, visiting the local library daily with her mother in Atlanta. Her writing was published in the magazine Seventeen at the age of 19. Packer is a 1990 graduate of Seneca High School in Louisville, Kentucky.
Packer attended Yale University, receiving her BA in 1994. Her graduate work included an MA at Johns Hopkins University in 1995 and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop of the University of Iowa in 1999, where she was mentored by James Alan McPherson and Marilynne Robinson.
Writing career Her work was first published in the Debut Fiction issue of The New Yorker in 2000. Her short story in the issue became the title story in her collection Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. As Publishers Weekly put it, "this debut short story collection is getting the highest of accolades from the New York Times, Harper's, the New Yorker and most every other branch of the literary criticism tree.""Drinking Coffee Elsewhere", Barnes & Noble.
"ZZ Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is taught in creative writing courses nationwide and with good reason. This short story collection is brimming with characters who are striving to find themselves, to understand themselves, and to survive", commented novelist Colson Whitehead.
In a 2015 interview, when Packer was a Radcliffe Fellow, she reported that she was working on a novel set during Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War. The novel-in-progress, The Thousands, "chronicles the lives of black, white, and Native American families shortly after the Civil War, through Reconstruction and the Indian Campaigns in the Southwest". She has been regularly contributing to The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker.
Teaching and fellowships Packer has held teaching posts at Stanford University, where she was a Jones Lecturer, the Michener Center at the University of Texas at Austin, Vassar College, and San Francisco University. As of 2025, she is Assistant Professor of English at the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities at Vanderbilt University and teaches Advanced Narrative Techniques on the American Short Fiction MFA for All.
She has been the recipient of a Dobie Paisano Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, a Hutchings Fellowship at Harvard University, a Knafel Fellowship at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, and the Whiting Award.
Works
Books +YearTitle2003Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Anthologies +YearTitle2000Best American Short Stories 2000The Best American Short Stories 20002003Best American Short Stories 2003Best American Short Stories 20032008New Stories from the South: The Year's BestDavid Austin Gura, "ZZ Packer's edition of Southern stories straddles old and new Dixie" , Indy Week. August 20, 2008.2015100 Years of the Best American Short Stories
Other works +YearTitlePublication1999BrowniesHarper's Magazine2000Drinking Coffee ElsewhereThe New Yorker2002The Ant of the SelfThe New Yorker2002Every Tongue Shall ConfessPloughshares2002The StrangerThe Washington Post Magazine2004Derby PieThe New York Times Magazine2004An Interview with John KerryThe Believer Magazine2004I Was Black, and I Told HerO, The Oprah Magazine2004Losing My ReligionSalon2005'Dr. King's Refrigerator': Thinking Outside the IceboxThe New York Times Magazine2005Sorry, Not BuyingThe American Prospect2007Buffalo SoldiersGranta2007Pita DeliciousThe Washington Post Magazine2007GideonThe Guardian2007The Finishing Party: ZZ Packer's Writing GroupO, The Oprah Magazine2008I want Obama to be daily proof that race is no barrierThe Guardian2008Saved to ‘Drafts’Granta2008Working the ReunionThe New York Times Magazine2009No Polenta, No CryThe New York Times Magazine2009Remembering Updike: ZZ PackerThe New Yorker2009A Finished Revolution?The Oxford American2009Confessions of a Shopaholic's WifeGlamour2010DaywardThe New Yorker2011Ferraro's Barack ProblemHuffPost2012Keeping it Weird in Austin, TexasSmithsonian2013It's Beyoncé's World and We're Just Living In ItNewsweek2017Trump Talk: Your Translation GuideThe New Yorker2017What to Expect When You're Expecting FascismThe New Yorker2018News of an ‘Outrage’ Used to Mean Something Very, Very DifferentThe New York Times Magazine2018When Is ‘Civility’ a Duty, and When Is It a Trap?The New York Times Magazine2019July 30, 1866The New York Times Magazine2019Truth And FictionPort Magazine2020Preacher of the New Antiracist GospelGQ2020Sarah Cooper Doesn't Mimic Trump. She Exposes Him.The New York Times Magazine2020The Empty Facts of the Breonna Taylor DecisionThe New Yorker
Awards +YearTitleNotes1997Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' AwardWinner1999Whiting AwardWinner1999Bellingham Review AwardWinner2003Commonwealth Club of California AwardWinner2004PEN/Faulkner AwardFinalist2004PEN/Hemingway AwardFinalist2004Alex AwardWinner
Other honors +YearTitle20065 under 35 honoree by the National Book Foundation2007America's Best Young Novelists by Grantahttp://www.granta.com/Magazine/97October 20072007Smithsonian Magazine'''s Young InnovatorsTessa Decarlo, "Comedienne of Manners" , Smithsonian magazine, October 2007. |- |2010 |The New Yorker'' magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers.
References
External links Profile at The Whiting Foundation From Matthew Klam to ZZ Packer: Some writers are worth the wait Plotting her return The Nobel Prize Waiting Game: A Year for Long Shots?