Short Works

Oprah Daily > July 16, 2021

Stepfather

When My Father Fell Apart, My Stepfather Was There For Me—And Him. Read More.

Human Parts > June 10, 2021

Dislocation

When we began dating, Tyler and I did a lot of traveling. We started out small: Our first trip was from Boston to the tip of Cape Cod. Soon we ventured further, to California, to Mexico, to Peru. Read More.

Oprah Daily > February 14, 2021

Timeline (A short story)

Here, in her short story "Timeline," King follows a waitress and aspiring writer as she relocates to her brother's apartment in Burlington, Vermont following an ill-fated fling with a married man. Shortly before her friend's wedding, she meets a new beau, a pal of her bro's, but her old flame is still burning not too far behind her. — from Oprah Daily. Read More.

Literary Hub > March 3, 2020

Lily King, on writing the novel she needed 30 years ago

In high school I was fed a full diet of male writers, from Homer to Shakespeare to Wordsworth to Faulkner and Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Plus — because it was New England — a few heavy servings of Cheever and Updike. Read More.

Vogue > February 18, 2020

My Boyfriend, his Best Friend, and Me: A Love Story

“Even my name was verboten, a small black hole in the corner of their friendship.” Read More.

The New York Times > October 1, 2014

Would Marriage Ruin Our Happiness?

“In the pictures in our wedding album, we look like we’re at a funeral,
our faces so pale and stunned.” Read More.

Lonely Planet > November 25, 2015

Peru, 1996

“In the States I was broke. All my savings had gone into this trip.
But of course I didn’t know broke, real broke.” Read More.

The New York Times > July 28, 2014

That Would Make a Good Novel

“Once I had those words, it became a novel. I saw it. I felt it. It was that fast,
like a gas becoming a solid in an instant.” Read More.

Los Angeles Review of Books > July 18, 2014

Beginning Again

I rented a room from an angry old woman with a dog that bit near the Arc de Triomphe until I got a live-in job making lunch and dinner for three kids across the river in the 6th. Read More.

Modern Love > June 19, 2014

An Empty Heart Is One That Can Be Filled

“I was 31 before I got my heart broken.” Read More.

Modern Love podcast: read by Zoe Lister-Jones:

Read Her Like an Open Book > October 19, 2014

Pencil and Paper

On paper you can write in the margin or squeeze ideas in between lines; you can use arrows and balloons and carets to rearrange and to add; you can draw pictures of what you’re trying to describe and you can read what you’ve crossed out…” Read More.