About

Hillary Behrman’s award winning short stories have been described as deeply humane and unsettling and have been published in journals, magazines, short story dispensers and an anthology.

Lake Effect, her debut collection of stories was chosen by Lauren Groff as the winner of the 2024 Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction and will be published by Sarabande Books in 2026. Groff praised Lake Effect as a book of “great moral power and heart” by “an author of extraordinary grace." 

Hillary is a recipient of the Chris O’Malley Prize in Fiction and her fiction has been a finalist for several other literary prizes.

She holds an MFA in fiction from Pacific University and has received support from Poets & Writers, Jack Straw Cultural Center, the National Willa Cather Center, Vashon Artist Residency, Mineral Arts and Residencies, and Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Hillary lives in Seattle, Washington where she raised two kids and worked as a children’s civil rights lawyer and public defender. Hillary is currently working on her first novel.