Rita Bullwinkel
2025
Longlisted for the Booker Prize
Eight teenage girls compete for a boxing national title in Rita Bullwinkel’s debut novel, Headshot. The girls are underdogs with something to prove who have chosen to enter the demanding, unglamorous, and unheralded world of women’s boxing. Bullwinkel takes the reader inside the minds of these girls as they experience the pain and jubilation that come from a violent, aggressive sport, typically experienced only by men. Along with the left hooks and knockouts, each girl’s background is an integral part of the story. Bullwinkel’s honors include the Believer Book Award for her story collection, Belly Up, and the Whiting Award. She is an editor at large for McSweeney’s, deputy editor of The Believer, and she teaches at the California College of the Arts and the University of San Francisco. She lives in Northern California.
“Make room, American fiction, for a meaningful new voice.” – The New York Times.
“Headshot feels like the complete deal in a way we rarely see in debut fiction.” – The Guardian.
