Jessica Keener

I grew up in the greater Boston area (and if you're from Newtonville you'll remember me as Jessica Brilliant), graduating from high school early because I couldn't wait to get out and explore the world outside the classroom. Eventually, I got my B.A. (with honors) in English from Boston University. I picked up my diploma and a few weeks later checked into a hospital for a bone marrow transplant. I was fatally sick with a rare blood disease called Aplastic Anemia. For 2.5 months I lived in a sterile room. After I left the hospital, I spent another year under strict orders to avoid germ-infested crowds. The happy ending to this part of my life is that the transplant worked. A complete cure!

I returned to school for a Masters degree at Brown University's Creative Writing program (fiction). Brown awarded me a full-tuition scholarship based solely on writing excellence. I also taught a fiction workshop at Brown.

Eventually, I married a wonderful man, moved to Miami, Florida, and taught ESL, and freshman lit and composition classes at the University of Miami, FL. A few years later, I moved again and taught writing at Boston University.

The sequence of moves went like this: Boston, Providence, RI, Miami, Fl, Atlanta, GA, Budapest, Hungary; Portland, ME, back to Boston.

During graduate school, I worked one summer reading and critiquing manuscripts for the senior fiction editor at The Atlantic magazine.

My writing career was launched when my story, "Recovery," won second prize in Redbook magazine's fiction contest. Over the years, my fiction has been listed in The Pushcart Prize under 'outstanding writers' and published in many literary magazines and online sites including The Southeast Review, Chariton Review, Northwest Corridor, Night Train, Eclectica, Wilderness House Literary Review, Connotation Press,The Nervous Breakdown, and Huffington Post. Other stories have been finalists or place winners in various contests.

I am also a grateful recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in fiction.

In recent years I've been on some radio shows and was surprised by how much fun I had. You can listen to my National Public Radio interview with John Ydstie (click on link). Ydstie asked me to talk about Bill Rosenberg, the founder of Dunkin' Donuts and coauthor of my book, Time to Make the Donuts. Bill died in 2002 at the age 86. He was a fascinating, unique man. I've also been a guest on Reading with Robin radio show, and Brad Listi's Other People Podcast, and David Brudnoy's radio show. Night Swim audio book is coming out June 1, 2012.

In 1997, I began freelancing fulltime for The Boston Globe Magazine and other national magazines including O, The Oprah Magazine, Inspired House, Coastal Living, Design New England and Poets & Writers. I love the variety and enjoy working on deadline. These days, writing, publishing, editing, and reading fiction for Agni continues.

I'm excited to say that I am revising my newest novel, and that it is set in Budapest.

All best,

Jessica

P.S. You will find earlier works of mine under my full name: Jessica Brilliant Keener (I was born Jessica Brilliant--and, no, I didn't make that up.)