Karen E. Bender is the author of the story collection Refund, which was a Finalist for a National Book Award Finalist in 2015, and shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. She is also the author of two novels, Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. A second story collection, The New Order, will be published by Counterpoint Press in November. Her fiction has appeared in magazines including The New Yorker, Granta, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, The Harvard Review, Guernica and other magazines, and has been reprinted in Best American Short Stories, New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, and Best American Mystery Stories. Her stories have also won two Pushcart Prizes. She is also co-editor of the nonfiction anthology Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood and Abortion, and is Fiction Editor of the literary journal Scoundrel Time. She has received grants from the NEA and the Rona Jaffe Foundation. She has taught at creative programs including the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Warren Wilson College, Chatham University and is currently Distinguished Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Hollins University.