Leslie Jamison
Leslie Jamison | |
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![]() Leslie Jamison at the 2014 Texas Book Festival | |
Born | 1983 Washington DC |
Occupation | Novelist, essayist, academic |
Language | English |
Nationality | United States |
Education | Harvard College (AB) Iowa Writers Workshop (MFA) Yale University (PhD) |
Period | 21st century |
Notable works | The Gin Closet The Empathy Exams |
Website | |
www |
Leslie Jamison (born 1983)[1] is an American novelist and essayist. She is the author of the 2010 novel The Gin Closet and the 2014 essay collection The Empathy Exams. Jamison also directs the non-fiction concentration in writing at Columbia University's School of the Arts.
Early life
Jamison was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles.[1] Her parents are Joanne Leslie, a nutritionist and former professor of public health, and economist and global health researcher Dean Jamison; Leslie Jamison is the niece of clinical psychologist and writer Kay Redfield Jamison.[2] Jamison grew up with two older brothers. Her parents divorced when she was 11, after which Jamison lived with her mother. [1]
Jamison attended Harvard College, where she majored in English, graduating in 2004;[3] her senior thesis dealt with incest in the work of William Faulkner.[4] While an undergraduate, she won the Edward Eager Memorial Fund prize in creative writing, an award also won by classmate, writer Uzodimna Iweala.[5] She was a member of the college literary magazine The Advocate and social club The Signet Society.[1]
Jamison then attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she earned an MFA in fiction,[6] as well as Yale University where she earned a Ph.D. in English literature. At Yale, Jamison worked with Wai Chee Dimock, Amy Hungerford, and Caleb Smith, submitting a dissertation entitled "The Recovered: Addiction and Sincerity in 20th Century American Literature" in May 2016.[7]
Career
Jamison's work has been published in Best New American Voices 2008,[8] A Public Space,[9] and Black Warrior Review.[10]
Books
![]() | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2018) |
Jamison's first novel, The Gin Closet, was published by Free Press in 2010.[11] Jamison has described the book as the account of a "young New Yorker [who] goes looking for an aunt she’s never met...and finds her drinking herself to death in a Nevada trailer. They end up building a precarious but deeply invested life together, trying...to save each other’s lives."[4] It received positive reviews by the San Francisco Chronicle,[12] Vogue,[13] and Publishers Weekly.[11]
Jamison's second book, The Empathy Exams, an essay collection published by Graywolf Press, debuted in April 2014 at number 11 on the New York Times bestseller list.[14] The book received wide acclaim from critics,[15][16][17][18][19] with Olivia Lang writing in The New York Times, "It’s hard to imagine a stronger, more thoughtful voice emerging this year."[20] Each essay uses a mixture of journalistic and memoir approaches that combine Jamison's own experiences and that of the people in various communities to explore the empathetic exchange between people.[21]
Jamison's third book, The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath, was published in April 2018 from Little, Brown. Publishers Weekly describes the book as "unsparing and luminous autobiographical study of alcoholism."[22] It combines Jamison's memoir of her own alcoholism with a survey of others (some of them famous), with a focus on recovery.[1]
Jamison's fourth book, Make It Scream, Make It Burn, was published in September 2019 by Little, Brown. It's a collection of 14 essays on the themes of longing, looking and dwelling.[23]
Teaching
In the fall of 2015, Jamison joined the faculty at Columbia University's School of the Arts.[6] She is assistant professor and director of the non-fiction concentration in writing.[24] Jamison also leads a group of Columbia University MFA students in a Creative Writing Workshop at the Marian House, transitional housing for women in recovery.[25]
Personal life
Jamison lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn with her husband, the writer Charles Bock,[26] one daughter[1] and one stepdaughter.[27]
Bibliography
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Books
- Novels
- The Gin Closet (Free, 2010)
- Non-fiction
- The Empathy Exams (Graywolf, 2014)
- The Recovering: Intoxication and its Aftermath (Little, Brown, 2018)
- Make It Scream, Make It Burn (Little, Brown, 2019)
Critical studies and reviews of Jamison's work
- Greenberg, Gary (April 2, 2018). "Whiskey and ink : the stories that writers tell us—and themselves—about drinking". The Critics. Books. The New Yorker. 94 (7): 84–89.
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Notes
- ^ a b c d e f Barrett, Ruth Shalit (March 18, 2018). "Can Leslie Jamison Top The Empathy Exams With Her Mega-Memoir of Addiction?". Vulture. Retrieved 2018-03-30.
- ^ https://www.graywolfpress.org/blogs/video-leslie-jamison-and-kay-redfield-jamison-conversation-politics-prose
- ^ "Alumni Feature - Harvard University Department of English". Harvard University Department of English. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
- ^ a b "THIS BE ART: Leslie Jamison GRAD '13". Yale Daily News. April 9, 2010. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
- ^ "Faculty of Arts and Sciences 2002 - 2003 Student Prize Recipients" (PDF). Harvard.edu. Harvard University. 2003.
- ^ a b "WRI An Interview with Nonfiction Professor Leslie Jamison | Columbia - School of the Arts". arts.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
- ^ "Dissertations | English". english.yale.edu. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
- ^ Best New American Voices 2008: John Kulka, Natalie Danford: 9780156031493: Amazon.com: Books
- ^ Morphology of the Hit : Magazine : This is A Public Space
- ^ Jamison, Leslie. "In Defense of Saccharin(e)". Black Warrior Review. Archived from the original on 2011-07-18.
- ^ a b "Fiction Book Review: The Gin Closet by Leslie Jamison, Author . Free Press $25 (274p) ISBN 978-1-4391-5321-5". Publishers Weekly. November 23, 2009. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
- ^ Watrous, Malena (2010-02-28). "A 'River' of secrets". The San Francisco Chronicle.
- ^ O'Grady, Megan (February 11, 2010). "Isn't It Romantic". Vogue. Retrieved January 17, 2018.
- ^ Hertzel, Laurie (2014-04-10). "Graywolf Essay Collection Hits Best-seller List". Star Tribune.
- ^ Garner, Dwight (2014-03-27). "'The Empathy Exams,' Wide-Ranging Essays". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
- ^ McAlpin, Heller (April 3, 2014). "'Empathy Exams' Is A Virtuosic Manifesto Of Human Pain". NPR. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
- ^ Dillon, Brian (2014-05-30). "The Empathy Exams: Essays by Leslie Jamison – review". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
- ^ O'Connell, Mark (2014-04-08). "The Flinch". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
- ^ Tuttle, Kate (April 7, 2014). "Book review: "The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on 2014-04-13. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
- ^ Lang, Olivia (2014-04-04). "Never Hurts to Ask". New York Times.
- ^ "'Empathy Exams' Is A Virtuosic Manifesto Of Human Pain". NPR.org. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
- ^ "Nonfiction Book Review: The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison. Little, Brown, $30 (544p) ISBN 978-0-316-25961-3". Publishers Weekly. November 13, 2017. Retrieved 2018-01-17.
- ^ Jamison, Leslie, 1983- (2019-09-24). Make it scream, make it burn : essays (First ed.). New York. ISBN 978-0-316-25963-7. OCLC 1117773672.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ "Leslie Jamison | Columbia - School of the Arts". arts.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2018-01-17.
- ^ "About". Marian House Blog. 2017-11-26. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
- ^ Alter, Alexandra (2016-04-03). "In Charles Bock's 'Alice & Oliver,' Cancer Is a Highly Personal Villain". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-01-18.
- ^ Jamison, Leslie (2017-04-06). "In the Shadow of a Fairy Tale". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-01-17.
- ^ Online version is titled "Leslie Jamison’s 'The Recovering' and the stories we tell about drinking".
External links
- How Doctors Take Women's Pain Less Seriously in The Atlantic – described in an interview in The Empathy Exams
- 21st-century American novelists
- Writers from California
- Living people
- Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
- American women novelists
- 21st-century American women writers
- Harvard College alumni
- Yale University alumni
- Columbia University faculty
- 21st-century essayists
- Writers from Brooklyn
- Writers from Washington, D.C.
- Novelists from New York (state)
- 1983 births