Maria Kuznetsova was born in Kyiv, Ukraine and moved to the United States as a child. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her debut novel, OKSANA, BEHAVE! was published by Spiegel & Grau/Random House in 2019 and was a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick as well as a best spring read according to Oprah Magazine, InStyle, Pop Sugar, and The Wall Street Journal.

Her second novel, SOMETHING UNBELIEVABLE, was published by Random House in April 2021 and was praised in the New York Times and called a best spring read according to PureWow, AV Club, Paperback Paris, Alma, and Bustle.

She has recently completed LUZER, a “neurotic thriller” about an anxious and spirited high school student named Marina Luzer whose best friend disappears after becoming obsessed with her long-ago missing aunt, leading Marina on a wild journey back to her homeland of Ukraine to find out what really happened to the two missing women whose lives have taken over her own.

She lives in Auburn, Alabama with her husband and two children, and is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Auburn University. She is also the Fiction Editor of the Southern Humanities Review. Follow Maria at @mashawrites.