Marian Palaia’s first novel, The Given World, (Simon and Schuster, 2015) was shortlisted for the Saroyan International Prize for Fiction, longlisted for The PEN/Bingham First Novel Prize, a finalist for the VCU/Cabell Award, and recognized by Kirkus as a Best Novel of 2015. She lives in San Francisco, California, and in Missoula, Montana, with her Mongolian Barking Shepherd, Tupelo. In the early 1980s she was the littlest logger in Lincoln, Montana, and neighbor, sort of, to Ted Kaczynski. Her second novel, We Would be Amazed, If We Weren’t Already, is forthcoming.