From SLATE: Her debut book nearly swept this year’s literary awards. Why didn’t publishers want it?

In 2020, Philyaw told Olivia’s story, along with eight others, in The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, her debut collection. The book, published by tiny West Virginia University Press, has taken fiction’s awards season by storm: Philyaw won the PEN/Faulkner Award, the $20,000 Story Prize, and the L.A. TimesAward for First Fiction. Secret Lives was also a finalist for the National Book Award. Tessa Thompson’s production company acquired the collection for an HBO Max series; Philyaw will both executive produce and write. In the New York Times, Parul Sehgal wrote, “I keep loaning out copies … and having to order replacements.” This is the kind of acclaim that most books—much less a short-story collection, much less a debut, much less a debut collection published by a university press—never receive.

BY NADIA OWUSU

Read the story of the publication journey of THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES at the Slate website: https://slate.com/culture/2021/05/deesha-philyaw-profile-university-press-secret-lives-of-church-ladies