Kristin Vuković is the author of the award-winning debut novel THE CHEESEMAKER’S DAUGHTER (Regalo Press, August 6, 2024), about a 34-year-old New Yorker and Yugoslav refugee who, after being summoned back to her beautiful Croatian island to save her father’s struggling cheese factory, must confront her rocky past and heal herself in the wake of a fracturing marriage–a moving tale of cultural identity and resilience, set in the year before Croatia joins the European Union.
A “mouthwatering platter of culture, history, and the everlasting struggle for balance between tradition and progress” (Associated Press), “this magical, richly drawn debut novel transports readers to the idyllic Croatian island of Pag” (Woman’s World). When the protagonist, Marina, leaves New York and returns to Pag to try to save her father’s failing cheese factory, she must face her past as a refugee from the former Yugoslavia and discover where she now belongs. “[D]eftly weaves together themes of identity and belonging, love and loss, and growth and acceptance….Reading it, I was transported to that windswept island and felt like I was watching over Marina’s shoulder on her journey” (Condé Nast Traveler). “A literary page-turner with unforgettable heart” (bestselling author Caroline Leavitt), THE CHEESEMAKER’S DAUGHTER beautifully reveals “a woman who blossoms into the person she was always meant to be” (bestselling author Jill Santopolo). It might also be “the first novel that inspires cheese pairings” (Minnesota Star Tribune).
Kristin Vuković’s work has appeared in The New York Times, BBC Travel, BBC Good Food Magazine, AFAR, Travel + Leisure, Coastal Living, Hemispheres, Virtuoso, Fodor’s, and Public Books, among many others.
Kristin received the 2024 Rising Star Award in Arts & Culture from the ACAP (Association of Croatian American Professionals Foundation). She also received two Zlatna Penkala (Golden Pen) awards for her writing about Croatia from the Croatian National Tourist Board (2024 and 2017). In 2019, her BBC Travel piece “Dalmatia’s Fjaka State of Mind” won first place in the Society of American Travel Writers Eastern Chapter Contest, Miscellaneous category. In 2016, she was named a “40 Under 40” honoree by The National Federation of Croatian Americans Cultural Foundation.
Kristin is the founder of Adriatic Writers Conference—-the first literary conference of its kind in Croatia. She has taught at Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop, in the summer program at Columbia University, and Gilda’s Club NYC (now Red Door Community), a community organization for people with cancer, their families and friends.
She graduated with honors from Columbia University with a degree in Literature and Writing and went on to complete an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, during which she was Editor-in-Chief of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art and held an editorial internship at The New Yorker’s “Goings On About Town.”
Kristin lives in Manhattan with her husband and daughter.
Memberships: The Authors Guild, The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), PEN America, Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) and Association of Croatian American Professionals (ACAP).