Biography
Vanessa Blakeslee spent the first eighteen years of her life in Brodheadsville, PA. Throughout her childhood, her parents owned the Chestnuthill Diner and from the age of six she read, wrote stories, plays and poems in the restaurant's murky basement office and upstairs corner booths. At the age of nine, she had her first experience creating her own books and giving readings for her fourth grade class, and from then on she knew she wanted to write fiction.
At eighteen, Vanessa left Pennsylvania for Winter Park, Florida where she earned a B.A. in English at Rollins College and encouragement from her first writing professor, Philip F. Deaver. She continued her education at the University of Central Florida; there, she wrote the story collection "Bistro Girls" for her M.A. creative thesis. During this time she supported herself by working a variety of jobs--as a waitress, bartender, model, tutor, co-author of a screenplay and university instructor. She also traveled extensively, mostly through school exchange programs which brought her to study at the University of Sydney, Australia, Birkbeck College, London, la Sorbonne, Paris and at Charles University, Prague in the prestigious Prague Summer Program via Western Michigan University.
Upon completing her M.A. in 2005, however, she felt a compulsion to still pursue an M.F.A. and the need to study and practice the craft of creative writing with a focus on the short story form. She spent the next two years earning her M.F.A. through the low-residency program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts while teaching creative and expository writing classes at U.C.F. and Rollins College and traveling extensively in Latin America. During her tenure as a student in the Vermont College program, she spent intensive semesters studying craft one-on-one with authors Domenic Stansberry, Douglas Glover, Xu Xi and Robin Hemley. She completed her thesis, a short story collection entitled, "Train Shots and Other Stories" and graduated with her M.F.A. in July 2008. She is also an Amherst Writers & Artists' affiliate, member of AWP, Pen America, and the Florida Writers Association.
Vanessa Blakeslee lives in Maitland, Florida. In the past year, her work has been featured in noteworthy journals such as the Cimarron Review, The Georgetown Review, The Madison Review, The Wordstock Ten Anthology, andThe Dalhousie Review. In 2010, her short fiction will appear in Harpur Palate, The Bellingham Review, The Saranac Review and is forthcoming in other literary magazines nationwide and in Canada; poems are forthcoming in The New York Quarterly, Italian Americana, Southern Poetry Review and other journals. Her poetry chapbook, “The Woman-Beast” was named a finalist in the 2008 YellowJacket Press Chapbook Award for Florida Poets. Her short story collection, “Bistro Girls” was recently named a finalist in the 2008 Sol Books Prose Series Contest. Her stories have placed as top finalists in acclaimed contests such as the Tobias Wolff Fiction Prize, the Glimmer Train Fiction Open, the Santa Fe Writers Project, the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, the Mighty River Short Story Contest, and many others.
In 2009, Vanessa received grants and fellowships from the United Arts of Central Florida, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow.
For more information on Vanessa Blakeslee, please visit the website: www.vanessablakeslee.com
In addition to leading Orlando Writers' Workshops, Vanessa Blakeslee is Executive Director of Maitland Poets & Writers, a division of the Performing Arts of Maitland. Visit this link for more details: http://www.pamaitland.org/mp
You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. ~Arthur Polotnik
Vanessa Blakeslee (left) in the Novel Workshop at the Prague Summer Program, 2004, and below, reading from her short story "Train Shots" at MFA graduate student reading in Slovenia, July 2008. "Train Shots" appears in Harpur Palate, Winter/Spring 2010.
In writing, pay attention to the process. The only way to reach the goal is to stop focusing on the goal. ~Robert Eversz
Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. ~Anton Chekhov
Orlando Writers' Workshops Salon
