RAO

Reema Rao is a fiction writer from Chicago, the unceded homelands of the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. In 2024, she was named winner of the Larry Brown Short Story Award from Pithead Chapel and awarded the inaugural Jennifer Weiner Fellowship by Blue Stoop. Her stories appear in Witness, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere, and have been finalist for Best of the Net, longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She has been the recipient of a grant from the Illinois Arts Council and financial awards from Boston Writers of Color. Her work has been nurtured in residency with Storyknife Writers Retreat and in workshop at Tin House, Kenyon Review, American Short Fiction, and other writers’ communities. She lives with her husband, son, and dog, and is currently at work on a short story collection and a novel.