Keija Parssinen's guest appearances

Keija Parssinen

Letter to a Stranger 

Write Now at The Writers' Colony

Pico Iyer

Rachel Pieh Jones

Laura Parker

Lauren Groff

Leslie Jamison

Chelsea Hodson

Melissa Febos

Ted Conover

Anna McDonald

Chris Leslie

Anjali Sachdeva

Julia Cooke

Aaron Gordon

Sara Wheeler

Lucas Mann

OwlTail

Wendy Taylor

Taylor Carlisle

Keija Parssinen graduated cum laude from Princeton University, where she studied English literature and received a certificate from the  Program for the Study of Women and Gender. She earned her MFA at the  University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote fellow, a Teaching and Writing fellow, and the student editor of the  Iowa Short Fiction contest. After finishing the program, she won a  Michener-Copernicus award for her debut novel, The Ruins of Us,  which was published in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa,  Italy and around the Middle East. The novel was long-listed for the  Chautauqua Prize, was chosen as Book of the Month by National Geographic Traveler, and was selected as a Best Book of the Middle East Region by Turkey’s Today’s Zaman newspaper. In Fall 2019, it was published in Arabic by the Syrian Ministry of Culture. Her second novel, The Unraveling of Mercy Louis, won an Alex  Award from the American Library Association, was chosen as Book of the  Month by Emily St. John Mandel, and was selected as a Best Book of the  Year by the Kansas City Star, Lone Star Literary Life, Missouri Life,  Vox Magazine, and Brazos Bookstore. Her short fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared or are  forthcoming in The Southern Review, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles  Review of Books, the Lonely Planet travel-writing anthologies, World  Literature Today, Slate, The Arkansas International, The Brooklyn  Quarterly, Slice Magazine, Salon, Five Chapters, the New Delta Review,  Marie Claire, Off Assignment, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by fellowships and residencies from Hedgebrook, the Corporation of  Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, the Vermont Studio Center, Playa  Summer Lake, the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities, and The Writer’s  Colony at Dairy Hollow, where she was a My Time Fellow. Keija was born in Saudi Arabia and lived there for twelve years before her family moved to Austin, Texas. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Kenyon College and lives in Ohio with her family.  Wendy Taylor Carlisle was born in Manhattan, raised in Bermuda, Connecticut and Ft Lauderdale, Florida and lives now in the Arkansas Ozarks in a house she built in 1980. She has an MA from The University of Arkansas and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of The Mercy of Traffic (Unlikely Books, 2019), Discount Fireworks (Jacaranda Press, 2008) and Reading Berryman to the Dog (Jacaranda Press, 2000.) Chapbooks include They Went to the Beach to Play (Locofo Chaps, 2016), Chap Book (Platypus Press, 2016), Persephone on the Metro (MadHat press, 2014), The Storage of Angels (Slow Water Press, 2008), and After Happily Ever After (Two River Chapbooks, 2003.) Her work appears in multiple anthologies.

Keija Parssinen graduated cum laude from Princeton University, where she studied English literature and received a certificate from the  Program for the Study of Women and Gender. She earned her MFA at the  University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Truman Capote fellow, a Teaching and Writing fellow, and the student editor of the  Iowa Short Fiction contest. After finishing the program, she won a  Michener-Copernicus award for her debut novel, The Ruins of Us,  which was published in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa,  Italy and around the Middle East. The novel was long-listed for the  Chautauqua Prize, was chosen as Book of the Month by National Geographic Traveler, and was selected as a Best Book of the Middle East Region by Turkey’s Today’s Zaman newspaper. In Fall 2019, it was published in Arabic by the Syrian Ministry of Culture. Her second novel, The Unraveling of Mercy Louis, won an Alex  Award from the American Library Association, was chosen as Book of the  Month by Emily St. John Mandel, and was selected as a Best Book of the  Year by the Kansas City Star, Lone Star Literary Life, Missouri Life,  Vox Magazine, and Brazos Bookstore. Her short fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared or are  forthcoming in The Southern Review, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles  Review of Books, the Lonely Planet travel-writing anthologies, World  Literature Today, Slate, The Arkansas International, The Brooklyn  Quarterly, Slice Magazine, Salon, Five Chapters, the New Delta Review,  Marie Claire, Off Assignment, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by fellowships and residencies from Hedgebrook, the Corporation of  Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, the Vermont Studio Center, Playa  Summer Lake, the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities, and The Writer’s  Colony at Dairy Hollow, where she was a My Time Fellow. Keija was born in Saudi Arabia and lived there for twelve years before her family moved to Austin, Texas. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Kenyon College and lives in Ohio with her family. Wendy Taylor Carlisle was born in Manhattan, raised in Bermuda, Connecticut and Ft Lauderdale, Florida and lives now in the Arkansas Ozarks in a house she built in 1980. She has an MA from The University of Arkansas and an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of The Mercy of Traffic (Unlikely Books, 2019), Discount Fireworks (Jacaranda Press, 2008) and Reading Berryman to the Dog (Jacaranda Press, 2000.) Chapbooks include They Went to the Beach to Play (Locofo Chaps, 2016), Chap Book (Platypus Press, 2016), Persephone on the Metro (MadHat press, 2014), The Storage of Angels (Slow Water Press, 2008), and After Happily Ever After (Two River Chapbooks, 2003.) Her work appears in multiple anthologies.

Episode 3 - featuring author, Keija Parssinen, and a reading by poet, Wendy Taylor Carlisle

Keija Parssinen: Letter to a Stranger - To The Sri Lankan Maid Who Was Erased by Off Assignment

Keija Parssinen: Letter to a Stranger - To The Sri Lankan Maid Who Was Erased