As Publishers Weekly put it, "this debut short story collection is getting the highest of accolades from the New York Times, Harper's, the New Yorker and most every other branch of the literary criticism tree.

"[10] "ZZ Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is taught in creative writing courses nationwide and with good reason.

This short story collection is brimming with characters who are striving to find themselves, to understand themselves, and to survive", commented novelist Colson Whitehead.

[11] In an interview when Packer was a Radcliffe Fellow, in 2015, she reported that she working on a novel set during Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War.

[7] The novel-in-progress, The Thousands, "chronicles the lives of black, white, and Native American families shortly after the Civil War, through Reconstruction and the Indian Campaigns in the Southwest".