Rivka Galchen (born April 19, 1976) is a Canadian American writer. Her first novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, was published in 2008 and was awarded the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. She is the author of five books and a staff writer at The New Yorker.
Early life Galchen was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Israeli academics. When she was in preschool, her parents relocated to the United States. She grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, where her father, Tzvi Gal-chen, was a professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma and her mother was a computer programmer at the National Severe Storms Laboratory.
Education Galchen received her M.D. from Mount Sinai in 2003. After medical school, she earned a MFA in 2006 from Columbia University, where she was a Robert Bingham fellow.
Career In 2006, Galchen received the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award for women writers.
Her first novel, Atmospheric Disturbances, was published in May 2008.The novel features a character with her father's name, Tzvi Gal-Chen, a fictional professor of meteorology and a fellow of the fictional Royal Academy of Meteorology. See The novel was a finalist for the Mercantile Library's 2008 John Sargent, Sr., First Novel Prize, the Canadian Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the 2008 Governor General's Award.
Galchen teaches writing at Columbia University. In 2010, The New Yorker chose her as one of its "20 Under 40".
Galchen served as the Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fiction Fellow for the Spring 2011 term at the American Academy in Berlin. In 2015, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Galchen's short-story collection American Innovations was published in 2014.Langer, Adam (May 7, 2014). "Short Stories That Riff Playfully on Some Enduring Forebears". The New York Times.Kirsch, Adam (May 8, 2014). "Rivka Galchen Is Not Your Mommy". Tablet.Gartner, Zsuzsi (May 16, 2014). "American Innovations: Canadian-born Rivka Galchen hits it out of the park again and again". The Globe and Mail.Cheuse, Alan (May 14, 2014). "Everyday Life Is a Rich Mine Of Absurdity In 'American Innovations'". NPR. It was longlisted for the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize and received the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. Each story is based on a well-known short story by another author, but switches the narrator from male to female and changes other elements.
In 2016, Galchen published Little Labors, a book of essays about motherhood.
In 2021, Galchen published her second novel, Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch.Hillary Kelly, "Rivka Galchen’s Unsettling Powers". Vulture, June 7, 2021. The novel was shortlisted for the 2021 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.Deborah Dundas, "‘May the force be with you’: Five finalists for the first Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize announced". Toronto Star, September 29, 2021.
Galchen writes for several national magazines, including The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine. She contributes criticism and essays to the London Review of Books.
Bibliography
Novels
For children
Collection
References
External links Interviews
Interview of Galchen at The Fabulist Interview of Galchen at The Paris Review
Reviews New York Times review of Atmospheric Disturbances Salon review of Atmospheric Disturbances James Wood review in "The New Yorker" "New York Times" review of "American Innovations" "Globe and Mail" review of "American Innovations"
Essay The Mystery of the Cat Mystery at the New Yorker
Author page Rivka Galchen at Columbia University