Heather McGowan is an American writer. She is the author of the novels Schooling and Duchess of Nothing. Schooling was named a Best Book of the Year by Newsweek, The Detroit Free Press, and The Hartford Courant. It was also included in the volume 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, edited by Peter Boxall.
McGowan received an M.F.A. from Brown University. Her original screenplay Tadpole was turned into a film directed by Gary Winick and starred Sigourney Weaver. The film won Best Director at Sundance in 2002 and was subsequently released by Miramax.
In 2006 McGowan and British visual artist Liam Gillick collaborated to produce the limited edition book, Le Montrachet. McGowan won the Rome Prize in Literature in 2011. She was awarded the 2012 Mary Ellen von der Heyden Berlin Prize Fellowship for Fiction at the American Academy in Berlin.
