Tupelo Hassman's debut novel, girlchild, is the recipient of the American Library Association's ALEX Award. Her short fiction, Breast Milk, won Quiet Lightning's inaugural chapbook competition. She is the recipient of the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Silver Pen Award, the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award, and is the first American to win London's Literary Death Match. Her second novel, gods with a little g, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2019.

Tupelo’s work has been anthologized in 100WordStory's Nothing Short Of 100 (Outpost19) and in Drivel: Deliciously Bad Writing By Your Favorite Authors (TarcherPerigree). Her work has also appeared in The Boston Globe, Harper's Bazaar, The Independent, Imaginary Oklahoma, The Portland Review, Santa Monica Review, and ZYZZYVA, among others.

Tupelo teaches at the American College of Building Arts, at Santa Monica College, and, California State University, East Bay. She lives in Charleston, SC with her family which includes at least one dog, no less than three cats, and, a 6-foot tall dancing wooden pig whose name is Theo.