Media — Tessa Fontaine

Tessa Fontaine is the author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, a New York Times Editors' Choice, finalist for the Utah Book Award, and best book of 2018 from Southern Living, Amazon Editors', Refinery29, PopMatters, and the New York Post. Other writing can be found in Outside, The New York Times Book Review, Glamour, The Believer, and Creative Nonfiction. Tessa won the 2016 AWP Intro Award in Nonfiction, founded Salt Lake City's Writers in the Schools program, has taught in prisons and jails around the country and was a professor of creative writing at Warren Wilson College. She currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

Bio (approx. 200 words)

Tessa Fontaine is the author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, a New York Times Editors' Choice, finalist for the Utah Book Award, and best book of 2018 from Southern Living, Amazon Editors', Refinery29, PopMatters, and the New York Post.

Tessa spent the 2013 season performing with the last American traveling circus sideshow, the World of Wonders. An essay about the sideshow won the 2016 AWP Intro Award in Nonfiction. Other writing can be found in the Outside, The New York Times Book Review, Glamour, The Believer, Creative Nonfiction, LitHub, Brick, and more.

Raised outside San Francisco, Tessa got her MFA from the University of Alabama. She has received awards and fellowships from Tin House, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Writing by Writers, Squaw Valley Community of Writers. She was a professor of creative writing at Warren Wilson college, has taught for the New York Times summer journeys, founded Salt Lake City's Writers in the Schools program, and has taught in prisons and jails around the country. She currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

“Astounding, amazing, inspiring and a little bit terrifying.”

―Laura Herzel, Minneapolis Star Tribune

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