Souvankham Thammavongsa is the author of four poetry books, and the short story collection HOW TO PRONOUNCE KNIFE, longlisted for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize and a New York Times Editors' Choice, out now with McClelland & Stewart (Canada), Little, Brown (U.S.), and Bloomsbury (U.K.). Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Granta, NOON, Journey Prize Stories 2016, Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018, and O. Henry Prize Stories 2019. She was born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand, and was raised and educated in Toronto where she now lives.