Shannon Sanders is the author of the linked short story collection Company, which won the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes' Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, was named one of the best books of 2023 by Publishers Weekly and Debutiful, and was shortlisted for the 2024 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including One Story, The Sewanee Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Electric Literature, and has received a PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, with her husband and three sons.

Praise for The Great Wherever

"Sanders is a sublime writer with unparalleled talent. I could read her writing all day, every day."
--Debutiful, The Most Anticipated Debut Books of 2026

"The Great Wherever is an epic and deeply human story of family and fortune that reaches across the divide between the living and the dead with grace, humor, and emotional conviction. Shannon Sanders's love for her characters is matched only by her ability to make us care about them as much as she does. I'm in awe of what she accomplishes in this astoundingly good debut novel."
--Patrick Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of Buckeye

"The Great Wherever is fertile ground for Shannon Sanders's vast gifts as a writer. Dead or alive, righteous or wrong, every one of her Lambs is a singular, beautiful mess, together growing the rich family history she seeds, from page one, with great care, heart, and unyielding humor. By the novel's end, I felt as dazzled as one of the ancestors at the edge of the pond, in awe of all its beauty and magic."
--Dawnie Walton, author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

"In The Great Wherever, Sanders masterfully bridges generations and yet is still able to home in on her characters' intricate inner lives. By the end, they all feel like family, and reading their story feels like coming home. Gripping, moving, witty, and wise, this is historical fiction at its finest."
--Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of On the Rooftop, a Reese's Book Club pick

"The Great Wherever is an arch yet heartwarming tale of family, the ghosts that haunt them, and the place we call home. Between the story's heartbreaks, we get leaps of humor that made me love every member of the Lamb family, the ones dead and the ones alive. It is rare to root for every character and yet I found myself doing so. What a gift of a book."
--Vanessa Chan, internationally bestselling author of The Storm We Made

Praise for Company:

"A deftly woven tapestry that scrupulously depicts familial ties and estrangement, richly told with a nuance that allows each character dignity and grace."
--Jonathan Escoffery, The New York Times Book Review

"[Company] captures Black familial relations beyond the frame. . . . Sanders extracts comedy from the formidable situations that erupt in people's lives―divorce, financial struggle, aging, death and childlessness. Whether chosen or biological, who we consider family can shape how we cope with drama."
--The Washington Post

"Sanders' writing is what we need right now: stories of Black Americans living and questioning and existing as families in this complicated world. She doesn't focus on Black trauma...Instead, she writes about regular people living their regular, messy lives; her characters are both funny and relatable."
--Washington City Paper

"Company is a rich and distinct collection that announces Shannon Sanders as an exciting new voice in contemporary literature."
--BOMB

"[A] rare feat. . . . Sanders weaves the narrative fabric of her stories with the utmost care, creating an intricate and lively look into the many beautiful moments in the lives of one Black family."
--Chicago Review of Books' "Must-Read Books of October 2023"

"Sanders's flair for home life links her work to a tradition of 'domestic fiction, ' a line traced from Alice Munro and Marilynne Robinson back to Flannery O'Connor and Zora Neale Hurston, whose narrative pace Company frequently evokes. In the work of these women writers, Sanders may have confirmed her own taste for the Southern surreal."
--The Adroit Journal

"Sanders excels in this masterly debut collection about a Black extended family . . . describing their slights, heartaches, and misbehavior with exquisite emotional acuity. This is a winner."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Remarkable. . . . The characters throughout are expertly rendered and deeply relatable. . . . Sanders' stories are unforgettable, making this a strong and promising debut."
--Booklist, starred review

"Subtly crafted. . . . The difficult aspects of negotiating family relationships are gently examined but, more interestingly, respected in their recounting. The complicated circuitry behind family alliances and breakdowns is artfully revealed."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Sanders writes with such courage and complexity. She has a masterful grasp of characters, pacing, and plotting. Company is a delectable debut."
--Debutiful's "Most Anticipated Debuts of 2023"

"Secrets are kept, traumas heal and endure. A rich, multigenerational portrait of a Black family."
--Electric Literature, "Must-Read Debut Short Story Collections of 2023"

"Shannon Sanders's stories simply blew me away. The Collins family and the many folks in their orbit are endlessly fascinating, frustrating, and fun to meet on the page. Company is a riotous, dazzling debut that is as profound as it is entertaining."
--Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

"A brilliant debut with each incisive chapter offering a new window into the beguiling Collins family. This delighted me."
--Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

"Company is a story collection that eats like a novel. Each story feels like a completely different vision of the same majestically sprawling family, as these neurotic high achievers struggle to balance the duties of kinship, social appearances, and honesty to their true selves. Reading Shannon Sanders makes me want to visit home."
--Tony Tulathimutte, author of Rejection and Private Citizens

"Company introduces an unforgettable cast of characters who remind us that family can be both wound and salve. Sanders offers sharp and original insight into the intimate politics of race and class and the impossible rules we've inherited to navigate them. This is a brilliant and immaculate debut."
--Danielle Evans, author of The Office of Historical Corrections

Publisher: Henry Holt & Company

Pub date: 2026-07-07

Length: 416 pages