Lauren W. Westerfield is the author of Woman House: Essays and Assemblages, winner of the 2025 Juniper Prize in Creative Nonfiction and published in March 2026 by the University of Massachusetts Press. Woman House was awarded the 20th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards winner in Memoir, as well as the 20th Annual NIEA Juror’s Choice award.

Her first book, Depth Control, a collection of genre-bending essays, was published in 2025 by Unsolicited Press.

Westerfield’s work has most recently appeared in Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Open Secrets Magazine, FENCE, Seneca Review, and Denver Quarterly. She teaches in the English department at Washington State University, where she serves as the editor-in-chief of Blood Orange Review. She also held the position of nonfiction/hybrid editor at Split/Lip Press from 2020-2024.

She is currently at work on a third book—part memoir, part autoethnography, part millennial reckoning—about the history and culture of her Northern California home town.

Lauren lives in Spokane, Washington, with her husband and their cat, Lou.

Contact: lauren.westerfield@gmail.com