That May Not Mean What You Think
Elizabeth Crane
Coming April 15, 2026
Author of:
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This Story Will Change, Turf, We Only Know So Much, You Must Be This Happy To Enter, All This Heavenly Glory,When The Messenger Is Hot
"Reading this thrillingly inventive collection, two words come to mind: deep fun. Rare is the writer who can deliver it consistently, but in one story after another, Elizabeth Crane does just that, illuminating our moment with voices as formally and socially subversive as they are wildly entertaining." -Antoine Wilson, author of Mouth to Mouth
BOOKS
First collection reissue!
Praise for This Story Will Change
"All memoirs claim to be true stories, but surely some are truer than others. I haven’t read a truer story than this one. I laugh-cried and cry- cried. I said things aloud while reading this book that would need to be bleeped. Elizabeth Crane’s This Story Will Change is not a divorce book. There is no groove to get back. There is no praying, but there is definitely some eating—and plenty of loving, though not in, as she writes, a ‘losing one dude andthen meeting a new dude and then everything is better’ kind of way. What there is, in spades, is truth. And the truth is, the story—the life—changes, and it will keep changing."—Maggie Smith, Keep Moving
Praise for Turf
​“[Crane’s] stories are fun and bizarre and wonderful and so, so sneaky . . . Elizabeth Crane mines the everyday and reveals what we’re missing. It’s unsettling. It’s hilarious. It’s . . . beyond. And you just know she’s having a great time, because suddenly you are, too.” —Lindsay Hunter, Electric Literature
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We Only Know So Much - Movie Updates & Trailer
Based on Elizabeth Crane's novel and adapted for film by Crane and Donal Lardner Ward, We Only Know So Much reveals the emotional life of four generations of the Copeland family. As Jean (Jeanne Tripplehorn) reckons with consequences of an affair, her husband, Gordon (Damian Young), worries he's falling prey to the same dementia that has afflicted his father (Loudon Wainwright III). Their children, Otis (Noah Schnapp, Stranger Things) and Priscilla (Taylor Rose), navigate the pitfalls of first love and young adulthood, while the family's 95-year-old matriarch, Vivian (Virginia Robinson), struggles to maintain control of the household in the comedic drama.
About the Filmmaker
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Donal Lardner Ward launched his professional career with an acting role in Whit Stillman's 1990 breakout indie, Metropolitan, then went on to co-write, co-produce, co-direct, and co-star in the 1994 indie hit, My Life's In Turnaround. Donal has been employed as a screenwriter or television writer by Sony, Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema, Universal, Paramount, Fox, IFC, HBO, and Amazon, as well as various independent producers. We Only Know So Much is his fourth feature as director.
We Only Know So Much trailer
We Only Know So Much premiered at the Nantucket Film Festival in June 2018, and was shown at the Circle Cinema Film Festival in Tulsa in July 2018. We Only Know So Much won the Best Feature at the 2018 Big Apple Film Festival, and is now streaming on most VOD services.
Praise for
That May Not Mean What You Think
"Every story is a banger, what an absolute delight."
-Samantha Irby, New York Times bestselling author of Quietly Hostile
"Is there anything out in the vast world of letters quite like an Elizabeth Crane story? No, I don't think so. Sharp, witty, intense, heartbreaking, and funny, Lord, so funny. These stories are brimming with human heartache and could only have been the product of Betsy Crane's brilliant, beautiful mind."
-Manuel Gonzales, author of The Regional Office Is Under Attack!
"Reading this thrillingly inventive collection, two words come to mind: deep fun. Rare is the writer who can deliver it consistently, but in one story after another, Elizabeth Crane does just that, illuminating our moment with voices as formally and socially subversive as they are wildly entertaining."
-Antoine Wilson, author of Mouth to Mouth
Stories / Non-Fiction / Interviews
Stories
Non-Fiction
Interviews
The Depressed Baby, Air/Light
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Portrait of An Old Lady, Oldster Magazine
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Training Module, Guernica Magazine
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The Long Trial, Catapult
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We Collect Things, Commentary
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Everywhere, Now, The Huffington Post
This is a Dad Story, Guernica
Wind, Hobart
Turf, The Collagist
Star Babies, The Coachella Review
Something Shiny, Chicago Reader
This Story Will Change (excerpt), AirLight Magazine
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On Girls, Trump, and Everyone I Ever Dated, Lithub
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Twenty Five, The Rumpus
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Nothing is Just One Thing, The Huffington Post
It's Everything, The Manifest-Station
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Ruby and Oli, The Believer
Elston Avenue, Chicago Magazine
EVENTS
Stay Tuned for Updates!
BIO
Elizabeth Crane is the author of four collections of short stories, Turf, When the Messenger is Hot, All this Heavenly Glory, and You Must Be This Happy to Enter, a memoir, This Story Will Change, as well as two novels, We Only Know So Much and The History of Great Things. Her work has been translated into several languages and has been featured in numerous publications including Other Voices, Nerve, Ecotone, Swink, Guernica, Coachella Review, Mississippi Review, Florida Review, Bat City Review, fivechapters, The Collagist, Make, Hobart, Rookie, Fairy Tale Review, failbetter, The Huffington Post, Eating Well, Chicago Magazine, The Chicago Reader and The Believer, and anthologies including Altared, The Show I’ll Never Forget, The Best Underground Fiction, Who Can Save Us Now?, Brute Neighbors and Dzanc’s Best of the Web 2008 and 2010. Her stories have been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts. Crane is a recipient of the Chicago Public Library 21st Century Award, and her work has been adapted for the stage by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater company, and also been adapted for film. She teaches in the UCR-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program. A film adaptation of We Only Know So Much is now streaming on most VOD services. Her latest collection of short stories, That May Not Mean What You Think, will come out on April 15, 2026, from Northwestern University Press, alongside a reissue of her first collection, When The Messenger is Hot.
WRITING SERVICES
Manuscript Consultation & Private Workshops
I've taught creative writing at the college and graduate level for 15 years at the University of Chicago, the School of the Art Institute, Northwestern University, and the University of Texas at Austin. Since 2009, I've been a core faculty member in the UCR-Palm Desert Low Residency MFA Program.
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If you're interested in setting up a one-time manuscript consultation or working with me in a workshop format, feel free to contact me for more information at elizabethcrane1979@gmail.com.
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