Lilly Dancyger is the author of First Love: Essays on Friendship, a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist; and Negative Space, winner of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Award. Her next book, Ballet Will Heal Me, is forthcoming from Autofocus Books in 2027. Dancyger's work has been published by The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Literary Hub, Brevity, and more. She teaches at the Randolph College low-residency MFA program, and writes the newsletter The Word Cave.