CHSS Distinguished Alumni - English

Jessica Anthony

MFA Creative Writing '04

Jessica Anthony is the author of four books of fiction, including the novel The Most, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Prix Fitzgerald and the Clark Fiction Prize. Her novel, Enter the Aardvark, was a finalist for the New England Book Award, and her novel The Convalescent won the inaugural Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award from McSweeney’s. Her short stories have appeared in Best American Nonrequired Reading, Best New American Voices, McSweeney’s, The Idaho Review, and elsewhere.  

Anthony is a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow and has received the Creative Capital Award for Literature. Other fellowships include support from the Maine Arts Commission, MacDowell, Ucross, and the Bogliasco Foundation. Her books have been translated into ten languages and have been featured in Time, Newsweek, NPR, The Washington Post, and The New York Times as an Editor’s Choice, as well as internationally in Le Monde, Der Spiegel, El País, and Il Manifesto.