Miranda July, Artist & Filmmaker

When Miranda July (née Miranda Jennifer Grossinger) dropped out of college to move to Portland in the 1990s, it was clear she was already adept at conveying gravitas. Through a manner that would hint at her proclivity for creative storytelling, she told her parents of her departure through letters recorded on cassette tapes left with her brother in order to create a ""real sense of drama"" about her decision to leave school. These early experiments communicating through multimedia matured into a lifetime of award-winning performances and writing.

Miranda July is now a filmmaker, artist and writer. She is the author of It Chooses You and No One Belongs Here More Than You, a collection of short stories that won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. July wrote, directed and starred in two feature-length films, The Future and Me and You and Everyone We Know, winner of the special jury prize at the Sundance Film festival and four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, including the Camera d'Or. Her fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, Harper's and The New Yorker. Her multimedia projects have been presented at the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and featured in two Whitney Biennials.