Aja Gabel's short fiction can be found in New England Review, New Ohio Review, Glimmer Train, BOMB, and elsewhere. Her lyric essay, "The Sparrows in France," appeared in Kenyon Review and earned her an honorable mention in Best American Essays 2015. She has taught fiction, non-fiction, and literature at the University of Virginia, the University of Houston, Sweet Briar College, and Pacific University, as well as at undergraduate creative writing conferences and community workshop organizations. She earned her BA at Wesleyan University, her MFA at the University of Virginia and has a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston.
Genres: Literary Fiction
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Aja Gabel recommends

All That Life Can Afford (2025)
Emily Everett
"If Pride and Prejudice's Elizabeth Bennet walked into The Great Gatsby, and they were all transported to the year 2009, that would be Everett's sparkling novel: a coming-of-age story of love, grief, friendship, and of course, money. Addictive, pleasurable, and always fun, All That Life Can Afford is also grounded and sincere, a modern twist on familiar classics that I devoured."

How to Care for a Human Girl (2023)
Ashley Wurzbacher
"I was deftly entertained and deeply moved by the Battle sisters' journeys through love, lust, and loss. With tender writing, fully alive characters, and a story about womanhood, sisterhood, and salvation, this novel is a rare thrill, both charming and electrifying. I inhaled it."

Wildcat (2022)
Amelia Morris
"Wildcat is a delightful, searingly accurate novel about the insecurity of new motherhood meeting the seduction of toxic friendships. In writing that manages to be tender, precise, and funny, Morris tells the story of a woman in a state of becoming, caught between what's natural and what's wild. And with witty sendups of a certain kind of L.A. style and the absurdity of influencer culture, Wildcat reminded me what juicy fun disappearing into a good book can be."
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