Her Body and Other Parties
The author's debut short story collection and a direct introduction to her fiction.
Author guide
Carmen Maria Machado Books in Order
Carmen Maria Machado is an American writer whose work spans short fiction, memoir, essays, poetry, and comics. Her principal books include the short story collection Her Body and Other Parties, the memoir In the Dream House, and the limited graphic series The Low, Low Woods.
fictionhorrorspeculative fictionmemoiressayspoetrycomics
Catalog record updated .
Not sure where to begin?
Start with one of these
In the Dream House
Her acclaimed standalone memoir and major nonfiction work.
The Low, Low Woods #1
The first issue of her completed graphic series.
Read in order
Books by series
graphic series · completed
The Low, Low Woods
A completed six-issue limited comic series from DC Comics and Hill House Comics, written by Carmen Maria Machado and Joe Hill, with art by Dani.
- 1 The Low, Low Woods #1
Book 1 · graphic_comic_issue · 2019
- 2 The Low, Low Woods #2
Book 2 · graphic_comic_issue · 2020
- 3 The Low, Low Woods #3
Book 3 · graphic_comic_issue · 2020
- 4 The Low, Low Woods #4
Book 4 · graphic_comic_issue · 2020
- 5 The Low, Low Woods #5
Book 5 · graphic_comic_issue · 2020
- 6 The Low, Low Woods #6
Book 6 · graphic_comic_issue · 2020
Outside the series
Bibliography by category
Nonfiction (1)
- In the Dream House
memoir · 2019
In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a…
Short fiction (1)
- Her Body and Other Parties
short_story_collection · 2017
In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen…
Frequently asked questions about Carmen Maria Machado
Who is Carmen Maria Machado?
She is an American writer of fiction, nonfiction, essays, and criticism. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has held a writing residency at the University of Pennsylvania.
Sources: carmenmariamachado.com (opens in a new tab)writersworkshop.uiowa.edu (opens in a new tab)
How does Carmen Maria Machado identify, and how does that shape her work?
Machado has described herself as queer and Latina, saying these identities are inseparable from her life and art. Her writing often explores bodies, gender, sexuality, and queer experience.
Sources: hazlitt.net (opens in a new tab)academic.oup.com (opens in a new tab)
Which writers influenced Carmen Maria Machado?
She has cited Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter, Kelly Link, Karen Russell, Helen Oyeyemi, and Gabriel García Márquez among her influences. She particularly values their use of the uncanny, genre-bending, and imaginative worldbuilding.
Sources: themillions.com (opens in a new tab)mastersreview.com (opens in a new tab)
What awards has Carmen Maria Machado won?
Her major honors include the Bard Fiction Prize, Lambda Literary Awards for Lesbian Fiction and LGBTQ Nonfiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. She has also been a National Book Award finalist.
Sources: carmenmariamachado.com (opens in a new tab)writersworkshop.uiowa.edu (opens in a new tab)
Why is Carmen Maria Machado important to contemporary literature?
Her genre-bending writing brings queerness, gender, sexuality, and women’s lives into innovative contemporary fiction. The National Book Foundation has described her work as enlarging the possibilities of contemporary fiction.
Sources: bard.edu (opens in a new tab)nationalbook.org (opens in a new tab)