Jane Vandenburgh (born 1948) is an American novelist and memoirist.

Biography

A fifth-generation

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

n, she was born in

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and grew up in Redondo Beach and in the San Fernando Valley. She holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from

California State University Long Beach California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) is a public research university in Long Beach, California. The 322-acre campus is the second largest of the 23-school California State University system (CSU) and one of the largest universities i ...

(1971) and a master's degree (1978) in English literature with a specialization in creative writing from

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different ...

. The title story of her master's thesis, ''The Salisbury Court Reporter'', won the

Katherine Anne Porter Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. Her 1962 novel '' Ship of Fools'' was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her sh ...

Prize for fiction in 1981. Her publisher is

Counterpoint Press Counterpoint LLC was a publishing company distributed by Perseus Books Group launched in 2007. It was formed from the consolidation of three presses: Perseus' Counterpoint Press, Avalon Publishing Group's Shoemaker & Hoard and the independent S ...

. Vandenburgh is the author of two novels, ''Failure to Zig-Zag'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1989), ''The Physics of Sunset'' (Pantheon 1999), and two books of memoir
''A Pocket History of Sex in the Twentieth Century''
( Counterpoint 2009) an
''The Wrong Dog Dream: A True Romance''
Counterpoint, 2013), which is an intense parallel narrative of dog ownership and a new marriage while living in Washington, DC. Vandenburgh's book on the craft of fiction, ''The Architecture of the Novel: A Writer's Handbook'' (Counterpoint 2010) is a philosophical exploration of the structural elements of long-form fiction, with an introduction by writer

Anne Lamott Anne Lamott (born April 10, 1954) is an American novelist and non-fiction writer. She is also a progressive political activist, public speaker, and writing teacher. Lamott is based in Marin County, California. Her nonfiction works are largely ...

. Once a recipient of the Mildred Sherrod Bissinger Memorial Endowed Fellowship, Vandenburgh now teaches a yearlong course in the book length narrative through the

Djerassi Artists Residency The Djerassi Resident Artists Program is an artists and writers residency in Woodside, California. The residency sits on a 583-acre ranch with a 12-sided cattle barn converted into artist studios. History The program was co-founded in 1979 by C ...

program in Woodside, California, as well as an annual workshop a
Fishtrap: Writing and the West
in Oregon. Vandenburgh has taught in graduate programs of literature and creative writing at University of California, Davis, Georgetown and the George Washington universities in Washington, DC, and served as Distinguished Writer in Residence at St. Mary's College, in Moraga, California. Since the late 1970s Vandenburgh has worked as a developmental editor for such publishers as San Francisco-based Chronicle Books,

and for th
Book Club of California
A regular columnist for ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

'', Vandenburgh published there an open letter to

Robert B. Silvers Robert Benjamin Silvers (December 31, 1929 – March 20, 2017) was an American editor who served as editor of ''The New York Review of Books'' from 1963 to 2017. Raised on Long Island, New York, Silvers graduated from the University of Chicago ...

, long-time editor of the ''

New York Review of Books New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...

'', describing the long tradition of strong support that she and other literary women have shown that publication, but questioning the preponderance of males in its reviewer roster and its review subjects. Vandenburgh is the mother of two children from a previous marriage, Eva Zimmerman and Noah Zimmerman. She is married to Jack Shoemaker, Editorial Director and Vice-President at

in a

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

, longtime publisher of Gary Snyder and

Wendell Berry Wendell Erdman Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of ...

, among many other writers. They live in Point Richmond, California. In 1999, Vandenburgh was the Washington, D.C. coordinator of the Million Mom March, a public demonstration to raise public awareness about the need for stricter gun control in the U.S."Moms Plan to March on D.C. Over Gun Laws," (Bowling Green, Kentucky) Daily News, December 17, 1999, 2-B.

References

External links

Jane Vandenburgh author website

Counterpoint Press

Jane Vandenburgh Huffington Post blog

* ttps://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/books/review/bechdel.html?_r=1& Graphic Review by Alison Bechdel of Vandenburgh's memoir, A Pocket History of Sex in the 20th Century
Interview with Jane Vandenburgh

Guest blog post
"When We Fell in Love" at ''Three Guys, One Book'' blog
"When Grace at the Bliss Cafe Calls," New Yorker, Jan. 11, 2016.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vandenburgh, Jane 1948 births Living people 20th-century American novelists American women novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women