Sheila Kohler

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Sheila Kohler is the author of eleven novels, three volumes of short fiction, a memoir, and many essays. Her most recent novel is Open Secrets (Penguin 2020). Her memoir, Once We Were Sisters, was published in 2017 by Penguin as well as Canongate in England and Spain.

Kohler has won numerous prizes including two O. Henry prizes, the Antioch Review Prize, an Open Voice Award, and the Smart Family Foundation prize. Her work has been included in Best American Short Stories and Best American Mystery and has been published in thirteen countries. In 2022, Dreaming for Freud was translated into Serbian. In 2023 her novel, Cracks, was reissued by Open Road and made into a film with directors Jordan and Ridley Scott, with Eva Green playing Miss G. Kohler has been a fellow at the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers and a visiting writer at the American Academy of Rome.

Kohler has taught at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, Bennington College and Princeton University since 2007. You can find her blog at Psychology Today under "Dreaming for Freud."

“The Meaning of Memoir” | The Center for Fiction, 3/21/17

“Camouflage” | The American Scholar, June 2, 2020

“The Windmills of our Minds” | The American Scholar, August 3, 2020

“Miss Martin” | The Best American Mystery Stories 2020

“The Best Books Vogue Editors Read in 2020” includes Kohler’s novel, Open Secrets| Vogue, Dec. 24, 2020

Once We Were Sisters by Kohler included on list of “35 Memoirs Everyone Should Read” | Reader’s Digest, March 3, 2021

Kohler’s novel, Open Secrets, is longlisted for the 2022 Joyce Carol Oates Prize | New Literary Project, Nov. 10, 2021

“A Secret Country” | Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, May/June 2022

Podcast: Listen to Sheila Kohler read “The Changing Room” — A story from Ellery Queen’s | Episode 175, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine Fiction Podcast, May 1, 2024

Podcast with Kelly Fordan and Sheila Kohler: “Let’s Deconstruct a Story” | May 15, 2024