Scott Dominic Carpenter
Maybe it was the early job at a uranium mine. Perhaps it's his fascination with the Paris catacombs. For whatever reason, Scott Carpenter relishes telling stories from beneath life's mundane surface.
An emeritus professor of French literature and creative writing at Carleton College (Northfield, Minnesota), his books include the Midwest Bookstore Bestseller Paris Lost & Found (2024, Foreword Indies Prize) and French Like Moi: A Midwesterner in Paris (2020, Next Generation Indie Book Prize), a collection of short stories called This Jealous Earth (2012), and a novel, Theory of Remainders — a Kirkus Best Book of 2013, currently in development with a major film production company.
Always nosing about for the unexpected, he splits his time between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Paris, France (the 13th arrondissement, specifically — not the postcard version).
Although this website focuses on his creative writing, he has a substantial body of academic publications dealing (mostly) with French literature and literary theory. Gluttons for punishment can inquire about those separately.
Honors & Awards
- 2025 Midland Authors Award — Honorable mention, for Paris Lost and Found
- 2024 Foreword Indies Prize — Humor, for Paris Lost and Found
- 2024 Best Memoir of 2024 — Nerdection Editor's Choice, for Paris Lost and Found
- 2024 Midwest Indies Bestseller — Midwest Independent Booksellers Association
- 2021 Solas House Gold Award — for "Deaf in Venice"
- 2021 Paris-American Library Book Award — Honorable mention, for French Like Moi
- 2021 Midwest Independent Bookstore Bestseller — for French Like Moi
- 2021 Independent Publisher "IPPY" Book Award — Bronze, for French Like Moi
- 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Award — for French Like Moi
- 2021 Forward Indies Book Award Finalist — for French Like Moi
- 2020 Notable Essay and Literary Nonfiction — Best American Essays 2020, for "Squirrel Pie and the Golden Derrière"
- 2018 Mark Twain House Royal Nonesuch Prize — 2nd place
- 2013 Kirkus Best Books of 2013 — for Theory of Remainders
- 2013 "Midwest Connections Pick" — Midwest Independent Booksellers Association