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Jeff Fearnside

Goodreads Author

Website

https://www.jeff-fearnside.com/

Twitter

JeffFearnside

Genre

Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry

Influences

Adalet Ağaoğlu, Ray Bradbury, Raymond Carver, Kate Chopin, E. E. Cummi ...more

Member Since

December 2014

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Jeff Fearnside is author of the essay collection Ships in the Desert (SFWP, 2022)—winner of several post-publication awards, including a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award—and two short-story collections: A Husband and Wife Are One Satan (Orison Books, 2021), winner of the Orison Chapbook Prize, and Making Love While Levitating Three Feet in the Air (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2016), winner of an Eyelands International Book Award.

His short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in dozens of literary journals and anthologies, including The Paris Review, Los Angeles Review, Story, The Pinch, and Rewilding: Poems for the Environment (Flexible Press, 2020). His writing has been nominated for Best New American Voices, The Be Jeff Fearnside is author of the essay collection Ships in the Desert (SFWP, 2022)—winner of several post-publication awards, including a Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award—and two short-story collections: A Husband and Wife Are One Satan (Orison Books, 2021), winner of the Orison Chapbook Prize, and Making Love While Levitating Three Feet in the Air (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2016), winner of an Eyelands International Book Award.

His short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in dozens of literary journals and anthologies, including The Paris Review, Los Angeles Review, Story, The Pinch, and Rewilding: Poems for the Environment (Flexible Press, 2020). His writing has been nominated for Best New American Voices, The Best Small Fictions, and four times for a Pushcart Prize.

Lori Messing McGarry, producer and host of Real Fiction Radio, notes, “In Ships in the Desert, Jeff Fearnside has written world-class essays. They bring to mind Octavio Paz and Ruszard Kapuściński.”

In his review of A Husband and Wife Are One Satan for Peace Corps Worldwide, author Clifford Garstang writes, “Each story is a gem, and while they share a setting, each focuses on a unique aspect of Kazakh life rooted in the singular traditions of this little-known Central Asian republic.”

Ideas of place, culture, and the natural environment deeply inform Fearnside’s writing and teaching. He lived and worked in Central Asia for four years, first as a university instructor through the U.S. Peace Corps and later as manager of a prestigious fellowship program in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. He has traveled widely along the Silk Road in Asia, throughout Great Britain and Ireland, and in more than 40 U.S. states.

Awards for his work include a Grand Prize in the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards Program and the Mary Mackey Short Story Prize from the National League of American Pen Women, writing residencies at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest and the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission.

Fearnside earned degrees in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University (BFA) and Eastern Washington University (MFA). He has taught writing and literature in Kazakhstan and at various institutions in the U.S., currently Oregon State University. ...more

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Who is your favorite fictional couple, and why?

Jeff Fearnside Terrific question! The answer that most strongly comes to mind is from a book I first read in graduate school, which was also my first introduction to…moreTerrific question! The answer that most strongly comes to mind is from a book I first read in graduate school, which was also my first introduction to this author. Her influence on me may not be overtly evident, but I admire her strong plotlines, good use of humor, and highly believable characters. My favorite fictional couple is Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley in EMMA by Jane Austen.

What I like most about them is the growth we see in them over the course of the novel. Many dynamic characters in literature, especially lovers, often exhibit change in a downward arc. I’m all for a good dramatic tragedy, but that isn’t all there is to life! In EMMA, we have two characters who work through their own issues of stubbornness and a self-satisfied sense that they each are solely in the right. While it may appear that Miss Woodhouse has the most to learn, I can’t help feeling that Mr. Knightley’s name is used somewhat tongue-in-cheek. After all, he has to come down off his high horse, so to speak, to finally see that Emma is no longer a child in need of guidance but rather a woman capable of running her own household.

It’s refreshing to see how Austen breaks away from the well-worn “love at first sight” storyline to build a romance slowly, incrementally between Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley so that we as readers understand what’s happening to them even before they do. It would never work if only one of them moved toward the other. They each take their own small, stumbling steps to meet in the middle and discover that their friendship has grown, through both trials and a building of mutual respect born directly out of those trials, into love. Sure, it’s the kind of happy ending that a serious literary writer would have a hard time pulling off today, in our much more cynical times, but I personally feel the story remains as realistic now as ever. Technically, its pacing is perfect, and even with a conclusion foregone fairly early in the novel, the twists and turns of plot never fail to surprise. Austen makes us care for these characters, and that’s exactly what made me fall in love with books in the first place.(less)

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Hi,Jeff, I'm delighted to be back in touch with you and see that you've done so well, how are you?

Jeff Fearnside Mary, it's wonderful to hear from you! Val and I think of you every time we make that wonderful beet salad we first ate in San Francisco with you--it'…moreMary, it's wonderful to hear from you! Val and I think of you every time we make that wonderful beet salad we first ate in San Francisco with you--it's one of our favorites. We are well, and my new book is off to a good start. I just had a reading in Eugene with some fantastic writers, and I have several more readings lined up. How about you? I'm sure you have something interesting in the works!(less)

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Jeff Fearnside’s books

Average rating: 4.25 · 153 ratings · 45 reviews · 11 distinct works

	The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays by Tara Lynn Masih (Goodreads Author), Simmons B. Buntin (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Li Miao Lovett (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 4.42 avg rating — 65 ratings — published 2012 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet by Clifford Garstang (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Brandy Abraham (Contributor), Jay Kauffmann (Contributor) 4.38 avg rating — 34 ratings — published 2014 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ships In The Desert 4.73 avg rating — 11 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Making Love While Levitating Three Feet in the Air: and Other Stories 4.33 avg rating — 12 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Scent of Cedars: Promising Writers of the Pacific Northwest by Anne Schroeder (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Jeff Fearnside (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Anita Crocus (Contributor) 3.17 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 2002	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Husband and Wife Are One Satan really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 7 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Life Inspired: Tales of Peace Corps Service by Jeff Fearnside (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Barbara Arrington (Contributor), Patrick Burns (Contributor) 4.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2005	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lake: Love Poems it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ships In The Desert it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Alligator Juniper 2010 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Jeff Fearnside is now friends with Aaron Baker
Mar 09, 2026 03:20PM · like
Jeff Fearnside liked that Joe is now a friend of Little, Brown and Company
Aug 05, 2024 06:10PM
Jeff Fearnside liked Anatoly Molotkov's review of The Hour of the StarTHE HOUR OF THE STAR by Lispector, Clarice (Author) on Nov-09-2011 Paperback: ""I ask you—what is the weight of light?" A Jew born in Ukraine and writing in Portuguese, Lispector brings the best of what the world's literature has to offer and expands on it in this novella that deconstructs and reconstructs identity and the worl" Read more of this review »
Aug 05, 2024 06:10PM · see review
Jeff Fearnside liked Anatoly Molotkov's review of The Coin: "In "The Coin," Yasmin Zaher experiments with building a character from the outside in, based on society's worst trends and obsessions. The contexts of sexual and gender liberation amid consumer fatigue, the right-wing attacks on human rights, and the" Read more of this review »
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message 2: by Jeff

Jan 04, 2015 05:32PM

Rhoda wrote: "Thanks Jeff..I do appreciate your wonderful review and thanks again for keeping me and our book in your heart. Rhoda"

You're very welcome, Rhoda! You and your book will certainly always remain in my heart.

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message 1: by Rhoda

Dec 30, 2014 09:21PM