Jenn Shapland

Jenn Shapland is an archivist, nonfiction, memoir, lesbian and gay author from New Mexico that is best known for her debut novel “My Autobiography of Carson McCullers.” The novel made the longlist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in 2021 and the shortlist for the National Book Award in 2020. “Finders Keepers,” the essay she wrote in 2017 was the winner of the Pushcart Prize and also won the Rabkin Award in 2019. Her work has been supported by the Georgia O’Keeffe fellowship. She has also been an intern at the Harry Ransom Center, a resident at the Carson McCuller Center for Musicians and Artists, Yaddo, Ucross, Tin House Writers Workshop, and the Vermont Studio Center. Before she became a critically acclaimed memoir author, she had her fiction published in renowned publications such as “Lit Hub,” “O,” the “Oprah Magazine,” “Outside Online,” “The Paris Review Daily,” and “Tin House” among many others. Shapland earned her doctorate from the Texas University at Austin and is now a professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts Creative Writing department in Santa Fe. She currently lives with her partner in New Mexico from where she does her writing.