Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of four novels, Lark and Termine, Motherkind, Shelter and Machine Dreams, and two widely anthologized collections of stories, Fast Lanes and Black Tickets (1979). Lark and Termite, winner of the Heartland Prize, was a Finalist for the 2009 National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Prix de Medici Etranger.  She is currently Professor of English and Director of the MFA Program at Rutgers-Newark where she established The Writers at Newark Reading Series.