Stephanie Soileau Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Stephanie Soileau is an American published author.

Her writing has been featured in a variety of places. These include Tin House, Glimmer Train, Oxford American, New Stories from the South, and different anthologies and journals. She has been supported along the way by fellowships received from places such as the Camargo Foundation, the Wallace Stegner Fellowship Program at Stanford University, the Vermont Studio Center, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Stephanie got her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has taught creative writing at different educational institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Stanford University, and the University of Southern Maine. She has served as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s Creative Writing Program.

Stephanie is from Lake Charles, Louisiana. Since then she has lived in Chicago, Illinois and Maine.

Last One Out Shut Off the Lights is the 2020 short story collection from Stephanie Soileau. This is a great story collection from a fresh voice in fiction that is able to show a variety of characters living in Louisiana as they deal with their various emotions.

It is a portrait of the last chance towns located in southwest Louisiana. This is a place where industrial pollution, oil development, dying wetlands, and the constant threat of being hit by absolutely devastatingly strong hurricanes have eaten away at the sense of home that the people who live there have. They are trying to find a footing in a world where the ground underneath their feet is always washing out from under them.

These people have to deal with not only the struggle to survive but their own personal struggles. They also have to deal with the ambivalence that some of them feel when it comes to being tied to a place that seems to be always in flux.

Different stories show their own lives and their points of view. A teen mom who is completely overwhelmed decides that she is going to leave her baby son in a closet so that she can go out for the night. A teacher who is married has a spouse who is terminally ill and is busy fantasizing about another man.

In another story, a retiree takes in the destruction of the aftermath of a hurricane and finds themselves influencing the fate of a lost cat, while a different story features a young woman who has run out of choices and tries to get her brother to go to Mexico so that he can get some surgery in an attempt to save not only his life but her own also.

Through this unique and fascinating collection, Stephanie Soileau shows the true heart of Louisiana while also telling the reader how Louisiana might be a location on a map but it is also a state of mind. Southern culture and the Cajun culture along with local customs and much more help to create a colorful palette and a portrait of this state and its (fictional) people that you won’t want to miss.

Should the Waters Take Us is a 2026 debut novel by Stephanie Soileau. This is an incredible story that follows one family through the years and over four centuries from France to Acadia to southern Louisiana as it takes a look at how place, belonging, and individual acts of moral compromise can assist when it comes to different cycles of injustice and destruction.

If you’re looking for something new and unique to read, this might be the right book for you. Other authors agree, as Jesmyn Ward calls Soileau a ‘deeply talented and wonderful writer’. ‘Buckeye’ author Patrick Ryan has commented that this story is ‘filled with unforgettable characters, breathtaking scenes, fascinating time jumps, and a setting so precisely rendered that it’s palpable’. High praise and an added insight into this worthwhile debut from writers who know what they like in a book!

Set in the bayous of coastal Louisiana on a spit of land that is rapidly going missing, various generations of Acadians have done whatever they can to make sure that their heads stay above the water. An offshore rig ends up exploding and through this process creates a terrible spill, the type that has the word ‘catastrophic’ attached to it.

When that happens, the people who live in Pelerin Parish are about to face the type of reckoning that ends up testing the bonds of family members as well as whether their way of life can survive. Several of the characters are already doing what they can to survive as the toxic plume of oil makes its way across the Gulf.

There is Boy Broussard, who is already having a tough time making ends meet while living off another man’s land and doing what he can to raise a daughter that he does not know that well. His aunt is Rosa Terrebonne, a woman who is dying and is attempting to fix the things that have gone wrong in the past. Despite all of this she is constantly finding herself frustrated and thwarted by Jacot, her husband and a retired land man of big oil who doesn’t want to give up the claim to the plot of land Boy is making a living on.

Then there is Father Fabian, the parish priest. He is here a long way from his home located in the Niger Delta. He decides to give his help to Boy’s daughter, but the insular community views him with suspicion and even hostility. Then a strong hurricane coming their way could be the thing that takes a terribly dangerous situation and turns it into a complete cataclysm.

This cast of characters are going to find out how strong they are and what they are made of as they contend with various stressors and ultimately just do their best to try and survive. As all of this unfolds, the author focuses on not only loss but the power of resilience and how much assistance hope can truly provide.

What is very impressive about this story is how Soileau takes the reader over different centuries and tells the stories of people living at different times in this place. The result is a family saga that will have readers compelled and following along with every word. Check out Should the Waters Take Us by Stephanie Soileau in order to see what she has to say.