I was born in Germany and grew up in Colorado. Like many immigrant kids, I learned my English from primetime TV and the Saturday morning cartoons. My parents spoke to me in German, and -- to their dismay -- I started answering in English before the boxes were even unpacked. 

My forthcoming memoir Child of Earth and Starry Heaven (Wandering Aengus Press) is an account of my mother's struggle with Alzheimer's disease. It looks to mythology, science, history and literature to try to find beauty and meaning as her cognition declines.

My novel The Vanishing Sky (Bloomsbury, July 2020) received the Eyelands International Book Award. It was inspired by my family's experiences in World War II Germany. My collection of stories, Rise (Sarabande Books), received the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Literature. My fiction has appeared in the Pushcart Prize Anthology, the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and been performed at WordTheatre and on Public Radio's Selected Shorts.

I have degrees from Harvard, UC Berkeley and the Programs in Writing at the University of California, Irvine. I live in New England with my family.

Reach me at info [AT] lannettebinder [DOT] com

Photo by Harvey Brotman