Erika Krouse ’91 wins prestigious Joyce Carol Oates Prize
July 2, 2026 — Erika Krouse ’91 is still in disbelief weeks after receiving a call from the New Literary Project Board notifying her that she won the 2026 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, a renowned award honoring mid-career fiction writers.
“The odds of winning are basically zero,” Krouse says, “so it’s an honor even to be selected for the short or long list.” Over the 11 years of the award’s existence, Krouse has devoured books penned by writers on the long list, which included 28 authors this year.
Erika Krouse ’91
Krouse has published four books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her most recent is a short story collection titled Save Me, Stranger, which Oates described as “masterly storytelling, so deftly accomplished, with such warmth and sympathy, the reader is totally immersed in each story.”
The namesake of the award, Oates is one of the most prolific writers in American literary history. Her extensive works are beloved and admired by legions of readers around the world.
“One of the most amazing things about this award is that Joyce Carol Oates read my book,” Krouse says. “I read her – she doesn’t read me!”
Attending high school in Japan, Krouse recalls going to the library to get books by Oates. “I’ve been teaching her work my whole career,” she says. “I admire her vision, voice, and ability to assert her identity despite cultural and societal expectations of female writers.”
In October, Krouse will have the chance to meet Oates in California where she will do a brief residency at the University of California, Berkeley, one of the honors that comes with the prize. She also will be teaching classes and doing public readings, among other events in the Bay Area.
Krouse’s writing has been previously recognized. She’s a two-time Edgar Award winner for her book, Tell Me Everything and her short story “Eat My Moose.” She’s also won the Colorado Book Award, the Housatonic Book Award, and the Paterson Fiction Prize, among others.
Growing up, Krouse had a rough childhood, so she found solace in writing. “It was what I could do secretly because no one could tell I was writing,” she explains. She describes the craft as “the most democratic art, because most people, if they can learn basic literacy, can write.”
Krouse is pictured at Gross Reservoir in Colorado. This photo and her headshot were taken by David Manak.
As a 19-year-old starting out at Grinnell, Krouse woke up one morning with an epiphany. “I decided that I wanted to write books,” she says. So she opened her door and proclaimed this to another student studying in the residence hall hallway. “He looked up and said, ‘So, go write books!’ And that was that.”
Grinnell didn’t have a creative writing degree, so Krouse majored in English. “The English literature classes were incredible, and the major was one of attrition,” Krouse explains, as she points out one of the onion-skinned 2,500-page Norton Anthologies that still resides on her shelf. “This was one of two volumes we had to read from in Trads [Traditions of English Literature].” The class had four exams per semester in which students had to identify anthology authors through stanzas pulled from literature not included in the anthologies themselves.
“The first test was purposely before the drop/add date,” Krouse says. “It was so stressful that we passed around giant economy-sized bottles of Pepto Bismol, much to the amusement of [English Professor] Michael Cavanagh.”
“Both Cavanagh and [English Professor] Peter Connelly taught me that we are all a part of a serious literary tradition,” Krouse says. “I also learned that everyone has an identifiable style of writing that is unique like a fingerprint, which continues to help me. I’m now an excellent AI detector.”
Krouse, middle, is joined by Arsen Kashkashian and Maeve Conran for a live taping of a radio show and podcast held at the Boulder Bookstore. Photo credit: R.L. Maizes.
In the 2002-2003 academic year, Krouse returned to campus to do a reading at the Forum for the Writers@Grinnell series. “I went to some classes and was thrilled to see that they were doing more in the area of creative writing,” she says. “Dean Bakopoulos [former Grinnell College writer-in-residence and assistant professor of English] did a lot to grow that program in recent years.”
Krouse teaches in Denver at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in programs aimed at book writing. She also does developmental editing, public speaking, and works as a visiting writer.
The Joyce Carol Oates Prize comes with $50,000 to help support forthcoming work, which Krouse believes will be life changing. “Gig work has been my zigzag path to more writing time, usually meaning 2-3 simultaneous part-time jobs,” she says. “The Joyce Carol Oates Prize will give me much more concentrated time to write my next book, saving me years of my life.”
With an M.A. in English literature and creative writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder, Krouse did not follow a traditional career path in academia. “I thought I would be more like Kerouac, you know, train jumping and eating expired meats,” she explains. “I’ve worked some bizarre jobs from reading tarot cards to driving an ice cream truck, which gave me more time to write.”
With the Joyce Carol Oates Prize money, Krouse will have time to take research trips for her next project, which is a historical murder mystery.
“Unless you are independently wealthy, writing is always a balance between time to write and time to make money,” she says. “Having a little breathing room like this is rare if you are a writer.”
—by Melanie Drake ’92