Vanessa Blakeslee received an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her short stories, poems, and craft essays have appeared or are forthcoming in The Southern Review, Harpur Palate, The New York Quarterly, Southern Poetry Review, The Bellingham Review, and other reknowned literary magazines nationwide. In the past two years, her short story collection entitled, "Bistro Girls," was runner up in the Sol Books Prose Series and her poetry chapbook, "The Woman-Beast," was runner up in the YellowJacket Press Chapbook Prize for Florida Poets. A second short story collection, "Perfect Conditions," was one of four finalists for the 2009 George Garrett Fiction Award from Texas University Press. Her short story, "Mani Rosse," was the runner-up for the 2009 Tobias Wolff Award in Fiction and appears in the Spring 2010 issue of The Bellingham Review.
Of "Mani Rosse," judge Kathleen Alcala noted, "A close runner-up is 'Mani Rosse' about the aspiration of an immigrant silk worker to better himself. Louis' suffering is made palpable in his allergy to the silk, which causes the 'red hand.' Louis' inability to share his dream with his wife makes this a poignant and affecting story. This could become part of a novel."
A former instructor at the University of Central Florida and Rollins College, Vanessa Blakeslee now facilitates Orlando Writers' Workshops and Maitland Poets & Writers throughout the Central Florida area. Her work has been recognized by grants and fellowships from the United Arts of Central Florida, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, AR. In August 2010, she will be attending the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in Middlebury, VT.
Other Notable Writers on Vanessa Blakeslee's fiction:
"Vanessa Blakeslee is my favorite type of short story writer, one who can seemingly write about anyone or anything in the world without staking a claim on one square mile of literary territory. Her territory is vast and one can easily find oneself in the mind of a train engineer who has just run over someone on his tracks, or a single mother living in a fundamentalist preacher's coach house, or in a philandering ex-pat doctor's bedroom in Costa Rica. I'm continually impressed by how swiftly she's able to drop me into a situation, no matter how far outside my ken, and make me believe what I'm reading. No two stories of hers read alike, though I believe there's something indefinable that makes me think I'd be able to recognize a Vanessa Blakeslee story no matter where I encountered it." --Robin Hemley, author of "Invented Eden" and "Nola"
"Vanessa has a good eye for the moment that a change can send a relationship or a situation off on an unexpected course. Her willingness to experiment with form and a wide range of protagonists and characters make for an interesting portfolio of creative work." --Xu Xi, author of "The Unwalled City" and "Hong Kong Rose"
"Perhaps the best of Ms. Blakeslee's fiction is 'Ask Jesus,' a terse, comic story about a man obsessed with an oracular Jesus figure that answers quetions through the mechanism of a floating eight ball embedded in its back and his kinky wife with her new silicone implants. The situation is gorgeously (who can forget the Bible Blazer superhero costume?) imagined, the dialogue zippy and dramatic, and the irony clear. Ms. Blakeslee has a vivid and inventive imagination, a talent for inventing loopy comic situations." --Douglas Glover, author of "Elle," winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction
"Vanessa has a very strong sense of story--her pieces seem to always have an engaging premise, rooted in the conflict between characters, between conflicting desires. The characters themselves come from a wide spectrum of social backgrounds, and Vanessa is quite adept at nailing them in a line or two, thus setting them in their social context. Her work often has an edge beyond her years--and at her best the work balances an edgy irony with a certain fundamental optimism. She is an engaging, talented writer--with a passion for literature and the study of writing." --Domenic Stansberry, author of "The Last Days of Il Duce," an Edgar Award finalist
Writer, Poet, Teacher
