Writer
FEATURED BOOKS
Without You Here
a novel,
from Flexible Press.
2025 Independent Press Award for Literary Fiction.
"A beautiful fictional exploration of a troubled family history." - Kirkus Reviews
What Makes You Think You're Supposed to Feel Better,
a story collection,
from Cornerstone Press.
"Each entry is as emotionally rich and resonant as the one it follows, and the prose is understated yet powerful throughout." - Kirkus Reviews
We write to taste life twice.
In the moment and in retrospection.
-Anaïs Nin
ABOUT JODY
Jody Hobbs Hesler has written ever since she could hold a pencil and now lives and writes in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Growing up, she split time between suburban Richmond, Virginia, and the mountains outside Winchester, Virginia. Experiences of all these regions flavor her writing. She is the author of the novel Without You Here (Flexible Press) and the story collection What Makes You Think You're Supposed to Feel Better (Cornerstone Press). She teaches at WriterHouse in Charlottesville, Virginia, and serves as assistant fiction editor for The Los Angeles Review. To invite her to speak at an event or Zoom into a book club or classroom, please contact her via her contact page.
SELECTED EXCERPTS
Swingset Bird
Pithead Chapel, March 1, 2025
Some people can’t tell you enough times how you’ve failed them, and I brace for a litany of reminders. How hard I was on her. How cruel I could be. How I should’ve taken anger management instead of taking my pain out on her. She doesn’t want to hear what it takes to get out of bed with this back, how it’s only gotten worse but it was bad enough when I was working two jobs putting her through school, scrubbing dishes at the elementary school and cleaning sorority houses at the university, and she doesn’t want to hear that she cried about twelve times more than the average kid, flinched at a raised hand. Flinched when I was gesturing, mind you. Like every time my voice notched up, I hit her? I didn’t. Not every time.
O Say Can You See
The Pinch, January 27, 2025
Frankie crouches low to the ground, makes a cavern of himself over the wick. Then, the scratch of the match. A flame. It wobbles in the wind, but it stays lit this time. He touches it to the wick. He can’t look away. The spark climbs like a bright orange bug beetling up the string.
​
The whole night flashes. The negative image of trees against sky. Then a sound so loud it stops all sound.
Never Gone
Bull Literary Journal, November 2024
During court proceedings, the advocate she’d been assigned kept telling her that everything Ronnie did was his fault. Only his. She re-played that message in her mind until she believed it. Or mostly believed it. But people judge. You can see it in their eyes, a calculation of how much trouble knowing you is worth.
CONTACT
Jody Hobbs Hesler is available for virtual and in-person book clubs and classroom visits, speaking engagements, and conference appearances. Query for availability.
For trade publishing inquiries, please contact Jody's agent, Mona Kanin at Great Dog Literary.