Sarah Elizabeth Schantz grew up in a bookstore and is an accomplished short-storyist, with many awards under her belt. Schantz holds an MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University. She currently lives with her family in a Victorian bungalow on the east side of Old Town Longmont in Colorado where she is close to the tracks and the nostalgic rumble of freight trains passing through. Fig is her first novel and was selected by NPR in 2015 as A Best Read of the Year before winning the 2016 Colorado Book Award. Her short fiction, poetry, and the occasional essay, have been published in such literary journals and anthologies such as the Los Angeles Review, Third Coast, Best New Stories from the Midwest, Midwestern Gothic, Bombay Gin, Modern Grimmoire and Hunger Mountain (among many others); in addition to winning several short story contests, she has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice. Her chapbook Down in the Water is available from Gesture Press. She working on three novels right now, one book on craft, and two collections—one of poetry and another of short stories.
She teaches through (W)rites of Passage, a creative writing workshop series and author's services that focuses on manuscript/writing midwifery and an emphasis on divinatory poetics. For more information about her workshops, please visit www.WritesofPassage.org. She also adjuncts for the MFA program at Naropa University where she teaches literature classes and writing workshops but also oversees creative thesis students. She serves as faculty for Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and in addition to teaching several workshops and craft seminars year-round, works as a Post-Grad Book Project mentor.
Schantz collects Edwardian-style nightgowns (which she both wears to sleep in and to write); owl and swan figurines, Lotus slippers, Blue Willow, doilies, old lace, owl pellets, bones, and dolls.
She lost her oldest daughter in 2018 and then was widowed in late 2024 when her husband of twenty-six years died from a heart attack. She now lives with her three cats—Tilly is the matriarch calico (and her familiar) from Taos, New Mexico; Cinder is a gray rescue from Lubbock, Texas with a Tom Waits' rasp of a meow and an Eeyore disposition; and Ponyboy, a once feral Siamese kitten from Casper, Wyoming turned sweetheart.
Schantz would be lost without fairy tales. Her favorites include: "Little Red Riding Hood," "Snow White," The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. She worships at the altar of Angela Carter and swoons to read the critical texts of Jack Zipes.
She is also a visual artist, only under a slightly different name: Sarah Elizabeth Taz Schantz. For more information regarding the name "Taz" please read her blog post titled, "Namesake." If you're interested in seeing or purchasing her artwork, you can click on the following link and sail through cyber space until you land in her etsy shop, Anangka Arts: www.AnangkaArts.Etsy.com