Leslie Sierra Jamison (born June 21, 1983)[1][2][3] is an American novelist and essayist. She is the author of the 2010 novel The Gin Closet and the 2014 essay collection The Empathy Exams. Jamison also directs the non-fiction concentration in writing at Columbia University's School of the Arts.
Leslie Jamison | |
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![]() Leslie Jamison at the 2014 Texas Book Festival | |
Born | (1983-06-21) June 21, 1983 (age 39) Washington, DC |
Occupation |
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Language | English |
Nationality | American |
Education | Harvard College (AB) Iowa Writers Workshop (MFA) Yale University (PhD) |
Period | 21st century |
Notable works | The Gin Closet The Empathy Exams |
Website | |
www |
Jamison was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles.[1] Her parents are Joanne Leslie, a nutritionist and former professor of public health, and economist and global health researcher Dean Jamison; Leslie Jamison is the niece of clinical psychologist and writer Kay Redfield Jamison.[4] Jamison grew up with two older brothers. Her parents divorced when she was 11, after which Jamison lived with her mother.[1]
Jamison attended Harvard College, where she majored in English, graduating in 2004;[5] her senior thesis dealt with incest in the work of William Faulkner.[6] While an undergraduate, she won the Edward Eager Memorial Fund prize in creative writing, an award also won by classmate, writer Uzodimna Iweala.[7] She was a member of the college literary magazine The Advocate and social club The Signet Society.[1]
Jamison then attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she earned an MFA in fiction,[8] as well as Yale University where she earned a Ph.D. in English literature. At Yale, Jamison worked with Wai Chee Dimock, Amy Hungerford, and Caleb Smith, submitting a dissertation entitled "The Recovered: Addiction and Sincerity in 20th Century American Literature" in May 2016.[9]
Jamison's work has been published in Best New American Voices 2008,[10] A Public Space,[11] The New York Review of Books,[12] and Black Warrior Review.[13]
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Jamison's first novel, The Gin Closet, was published by Free Press in 2010.[14] Jamison has described the book as the account of a "young New Yorker [who] goes looking for an aunt she’s never met...and finds her drinking herself to death in a Nevada trailer. They end up building a precarious but deeply invested life together, trying...to save each other’s lives."[6] It received positive reviews by the San Francisco Chronicle,[15] Vogue,[16] and Publishers Weekly.[14]
Jamison's second book, The Empathy Exams, an essay collection published by Graywolf Press, debuted in April 2014 at number 11 on the New York Times bestseller list.[17] The book received wide acclaim from critics,[18][19][20][21][22] with Olivia Lang writing in The New York Times, "It’s hard to imagine a stronger, more thoughtful voice emerging this year."[23] Each essay uses a mixture of journalistic and memoir approaches that combine Jamison's own experiences and that of the people in various communities to explore the empathetic exchange between people.[24]
Jamison's third book, The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath, was published in April 2018 from Little, Brown. Publishers Weekly describes the book as "unsparing and luminous autobiographical study of alcoholism."[25] It combines Jamison's memoir of her own alcoholism with a survey of others (some of them famous), with a focus on recovery.[1]
Jamison's fourth book, Make It Scream, Make It Burn, was published in September 2019 by Little, Brown. It's a collection of 14 essays on the themes of longing, looking and dwelling.[26][27]
In the fall of 2015, Jamison joined the faculty at Columbia University's School of the Arts.[8] She is assistant professor and director of the non-fiction concentration in writing.[28] Jamison also leads a group of Columbia University MFA students in a Creative Writing Workshop at the Marian House, transitional housing for women in recovery.[29]
Jamison lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn with a daughter she shares with her ex-husband, the writer Charles Bock.[30][31] She and Bock divorced in early 2020, shortly before Jamison contracted Covid 19 and went into quarantine with her daughter.[32]
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