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 started publishing stories, including one called Recovery, which won Redbook's second prize. I also taught a fiction workshop at Brown.

--Married and moved to Miami, Florida. Taught ESL, freshman literature and composition classes at the University of Miami, FL. A few years later (after several moves), I taught writing at Boston University.

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

In addition to teaching, I've held several writing and editing jobs including development writer and editor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and an internship at The Atlantic magazine.

I began freelancing full-time in 1997 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.

My short stories have appeared in literary magazines such as Sundog:the Southeast Review, Chariton Review, Northwest Corridor, Heat City Literary Review, Night Train, Eclectica, Wilderness House Literary Review, Connotation Press, and listed in The Pushcart Prize under 'outstanding writers'. 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 a few 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 on the wonderful Reading for Robin show on Saturday mornings. I'll be a guest talking with Robin about my novel in Januaruy 2012.

These days, writing, publishing, editing, and reading fiction for Agni continues.

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.)