Jeannie Vanasco is an American writer. She is the author of ''Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl'', a

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...

about her former friendship with the man who raped her, and ''The Glass Eye'', a memoir about her father and his deceased daughter, Vanasco's

namesake A namesake is a person, geographic location, or other entity bearing the name of another. History The word is first attested around 1635, and probably comes from the phrase "for one's name's sake", which originates in English Bible translations ...

. She teaches English at Towson University.

Early life and education

Raised in

Sandusky, Ohio Sandusky ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Erie County, Ohio, Erie County, Ohio, United States. Situated along the shores of Lake Erie in the northern part of the state, Sandusky is located roughly midway between Toledo, Ohio, Toledo ( wes ...

, Vanasco described her childhood as idyllic. While at

Sandusky High School Sandusky High School (SHS) is a secondary school in Sandusky, Ohio, United States. It is the only high school in the Sandusky City School District, and one of two high schools in the city of Sandusky; the other high school is St Mary Central Cat ...

, she edited the school newspaper and then studied creative writing at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

where she received the Jean Meyer Aloe Poetry Prize from the

Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...

. She earned her MFA in poetry from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

and her MFA in memoir from

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

Career

After graduating from Northwestern University in 2006, Vanasco moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to intern for ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...

''. She later became an assistant editor at ''

Lapham's Quarterly ''Lapham's Quarterly'' is a literary magazine established in 2007 by former '' Harper's Magazine'' editor Lewis H. Lapham. Each issue examines a theme using primary source material from history. The inaugural issue "States of War" contained doze ...

''. Between 2006 and 2011, she contributed reviews to the ''

Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

'', and in 2011 she began blogging for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''. In 2017 she published her first memoir, ''The Glass Eye'', which ''

Poets & Writers Poets & Writers, Inc. is one of the largest nonprofit literary organizations in the United States serving poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers. The organization publishes a bi-monthly magazine called ''Poets & Writers Magazine'', ...

'' named one of the five best literary nonfiction debuts of the year, and which the

American Booksellers Association The American Booksellers Association (ABA) is a non-profit trade association founded in 1900 that promotes independent bookstores in the United States. ABA's core members are key participants in their communities' local economy and culture, and t ...

selected for its Indie Next and Indies Introduce programs. In 2019, she published her second memoir, ''Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl'', which Amazon named one of the twenty best books of the year. An editor for the ''Amazon Book Review'' said that Vanasco's second memoir "adds a different dimension to the #

MeToo #MeToo is a social movement against sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape culture, in which people publicize their experiences of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. The phrase "Me Too" was initially used in this context on social media in ...

conversation—one more intimate, insidious, and full of improbable grace." Writing for ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'',

Laurie Halse Anderson Laurie Halse Anderson is an American writer, known for children's and young adult novels. She received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2010 for her contribution to young adult literature. She was first rec ...

called ''Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl'' "bold, unsettling, timely." Vanasco is an associate professor of English at

Towson University Towson University (TU or Towson) is a public university in Towson, Maryland. Founded in 1866 as Maryland's first training school for teachers, Towson University is a part of the University System of Maryland. Since its founding, the university h ...

where she teaches creative writing.

Publications

Essays

* "The Truth About Cats and Daughters" (January 2023, ''The New York Times Magazine'') * "My Platonic Romance on the Psych Ward" (September 2017, ''The New York Times'' Modern Love column) * "What's in a Necronym?" (July 2015, ''The Believer'') * "The Glass Eye" (June 2015, ''The Believer'') * "Absent Things As if They Are Present" (January 2012, ''The Believer'')

Books

* ''Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl'', (2019) Portland, Oregon:

Tin House Books ''Tin House'' is an American book publisher based in Portland, Oregon, and New York City. Portland publisher Win McCormack originally conceived the idea for a literary magazine called ''Tin House'' in the summer of 1998. He enlisted Holly MacArt ...

, * ''The Glass Eye'', (2017) Portland, Oregon:

References

External links

*
Interview with David Naimon on Between the Covers

Conversation at Ohioana Book Festival (video)

Interview with Amy Berkowitz in ''The Believer''

by Erica Schwiegershausen
Interview with Sheilah Kast on WYPR

A Double Whammy at Tibor de Nagy in ''The New Yorker''
by Jeannie Vanasco {{DEFAULTSORT:Vanasco, Jeannie 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American memoirists American women memoirists Hunter College alumni Living people New York University alumni People from Sandusky, Ohio Towson University faculty Writers from Ohio Year of birth missing (living people) Memoirists from Ohio