About

Bio

Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the recipient of a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He is the author of the forthcoming historical novel, Garden of Redemption, which will be published in 2026 by One World Random House. He also authored National Bestseller, The American Daughters, a New York Times Editor’s Choice published by One World Random House. The book was selected by Kirkus Reviews as a book of the year, chosen to represent Louisiana at the 2024 National Book Festival, and longlisted for the 2025 Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown Award. It was also a semi-finalist for the 2025 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. He is the recipient of the 2024 South Arts State Fellowship, the 2024 John William Corrington Award, the 2024 Inaugural Tennessee Williams Distinguished Excellence in Literary Arts Award, the 2023 Louisiana Writer Award, and the Black Rock Senegal Residency.

Ruffin also wrote The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, which was published by One World Random House in August 2021. It is the 2023 One Book One New Orleans selection. The book was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a finalist for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence and longlisted for the Story Prize. The book was also selected to represent Louisiana at the 2023 National Book Festival.

His first book, We Cast a Shadow, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize. It was longlisted for the 2021 DUBLIN Literary Award, the Center for Fiction Prize, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. The novel was also a New York Times Editor’s Choice.

Ruffin is the winner of several literary prizes, including the Iowa Review Award in fiction and the William Faulkner–William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Award for Novel-in-Progress. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the LA Times, the Oxford American, Garden & Gun, Kenyon Review, and Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America.

A New Orleans native, Ruffin is a tenured associate professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University, and a recipient of the 2026 Carruth McGehee Award for Excellent Research by a Junior Faculty Member. The 2020-2021 John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Ruffin was also a recipient of the 2022 Louisiana Board of Regents ATLAS grant. Ruffin has taught at numerous residencies and conferences including Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Maine Media, Randolph College MFA, and Longleaf. Ruffin was a co-curator of the Read My World Literary Festival (Amsterdam) in 2017 and a contributor in 2022. Ruffin is part of the Artist Network of Narrative 4, an organization dedicated to aiding the educational opportunities of young people. Ruffin also has a long running craft newsletter and podcast called Sitting in Silence. He is currently editing his fourth book. Oh, and Ruffin was the 2022 Grand Marshal of the Mardi Gras Krewe of House Floats.