Lee Upton is a local literary treasure-known best for her poetry. But she's recently been publishing critically acclaimed novels as well. Lafayette College Professor Jennifer Gilmore talks with Lee Upton about Lee’s newest novel, Tabitha, Stay Up, a sequel to the Thurber Humor Writing Award semi-finalist, Tabitha, Get Up, and also about topics such as writing in many genres, humor writing, the writing process and developing singular and unforgettable characters.
LEE UPTON, Lafayette Professor Emeritus, is a poet, novelist, and essayist. Her literary mystery, Wrongful, was launched in May 2025 from Sagging Meniscus Press. Her comic novel, TABITHA, GET UP, appeared in May 2024 and was named a semi-finalist for the 2026 Thurber Prize in American Humor. Her most recent book of poetry is her seventh collection, The Day Every Day Is, winner of the Saturnalia Books Prize (2023). A third novel, The Withers, asks questions about how self-trust can be reclaimed even in the most unjust and horrifying circumstances and will appear in June 2026 from Regal House Publishing. Tabitha, Stay Up, a sequel to Tabitha, Get Up, is forthcoming in September 2026.She is also the author of two collections of short stories, Visitations: Stories, and The Tao of Humiliation; a sixth collection of poetry, Bottle the Bottles the Bottles the Bottles (CSU Poetry Center 2015); and Swallowing the Sea: On Writing & Ambition Boredom Purity & Secrecy (Tupelo 2012). She authored Ambrosia, an e-book story published digitally in the Working Titles series from The Massachusetts Review, and an award-winning novella, The Guide to the Flying Island, as well as four books of literary criticism.
JENNIFER GILMORE is the critically acclaimed author of five novels, including The Mothers (Scribner) which was featured on “Fresh Air”and is currently being adapted to film, Something Red (Scribner) , a New York Times Notable Book, and Golden Country (Scribner) , which was a New York Times Notable Book, and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Harold U Ribalow Prize and the Dublin Literary Award (now the Dublin IMPAC Prize). She has also written two novels for teens. Her work has appeared in the Atlantic, Bookforum, Harper’s, the Forward, the Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, the New York Times, Real Simple, Salon, the Washington Post, and Vogue. She was the recipient of the 2023 Cornell University Philip Freund Award for Excellence in Publishing and the 2024 MFJC fellowship for her novel-in-progress, The Greats. Gilmore has been a MacDowell fellow, and has taught creative writing and literature at Barnard, Cornell, Harvard, New York University, the New School, Princeton, and Sarah Lawrence. She is currently an associate professor at Lafayette College.
