Deesha Philyaw is an American author, columnist and public speaker. Her debut, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2021 Pen.Faulkner Award, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize for First Fiction and was shortlisted for the National Book Award. It is currently being adapted for television by HBO Max. Deesha is also a Kimbilo Fiction Fellow and will be the 2022-2025 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.
