I am originally from California but now make my home in Ohio. I received my MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College in Vermont. I've published numerous stories in literary journals and anthologies. My first collection of short stories, "Welcome, Anybody," was published in 2012 by Press 53. I support my writing habit by working in non-profit marketing and communications.
I switch between writing stories and working on a novel. Listening to other people's stories is what fuels me.
I'm not so interested in the stories people tell me "oh I have a story for you to write about." I am more interested in how they tell me the story and why they want to tell it to me.
Alice Munro, Raymond Carver, Jhumpa Lahiri, George Saunders, Julie Orringer, T.C. Boyle, Junoz Diaz, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Haruki Murakami, Darrin Struass, David Foster Wallace - these are just the contemporary ones. I love the classics too - Austen, Dickens, Zola, Hardy.
Julie Orringer's "The Invisible Bridge" was amazing, as was Murakami's "1Q84."
Jennifer Egan's "A Visit from the Goon Squad" is impossibly good. It's not fair really, for someone to be so talented.
Every year, I reread Charles Baxter's "The Feast of Love." It is the perfect book.
No one has written on Jen McConnell's wall.
No one has written on Jen McConnell's wall.