Talia Neffson is a writer from Brooklyn, New York. She is the winner of the 2025 Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. Her work has appeared in The Hopkins Review and is forthcoming in Nimrod. She’s currently revising a novel.

And here’s where where I switch to first person, in case you want to know more about me as a human being . . .

I grew up in Brooklyn Heights, when you could get a rent-controlled apartment in Brooklyn Heights. I never left Brooklyn and now live in Windsor Terrace with my husband, Joshua Mehigan, a poet. I spend a lot of time in Prospect Park and I always make sure to wave to Monty Clift when I pass the Quaker Cemetery.

My first publication was in Cricket Magazine (when I was nine). In high school I published in Hanging Loose. I got my BA in Literature and Creative Writing from Eugene Lang College at the New School. I’ve never stopped writing, but instead of taking the MFA track, I cared for my mother, a traumatic brain injury survivor, and got my Masters in Library Science from Queens College. By day I’m a school librarian. I watch a lot of old gangster movies, screwball comedies, and Italian neorealism. I eat a lot of pasta. I swim whenever possible. You can read my short fiction here and find out about my special interests and my remarkable cat here.