Vanessa Carlisle completed her MFA in Creative Writing at Emerson College and is currently at USC, in the PhD in Literature and Creative Writing program.  Her work has appeared in both literary and trade magazines including NinthLetter, Boink Magazine, The Catalyst, Juked, Word Riot, Glossolalia and others. Carlisle's stories have appeared in the anthologies Boink: The Book and Men Undressed: Women Writers and the Male Sexual Experience. She co-wrote the nonfiction book, I Was My Mother's Bridesmaid: Young Adults Talk About Thriving in a Blended Family (Wildcat Canyon Press) ,with her sister Erica Carlisle.  Carlisle's first novel, A Crack in Everything, was collaboratively published and is available at Barnes and Noble. Follow her arts and culture blog at gorgeouscuriosity.com, or connect with her at vanessacarlisle.com.

"Vanessa Carlisle's characters are sexy, frank, and lovable, even when they tumble far from grace."  SARK "Carlisle taps into many young American women's struggle to guard their strong, independent identity while embracing their emerging vulnerability and secret desires. Her saucy writing yet tender and heart-felt characters expose America's hypocritical obsession with sex and sexuality and bridges an unusual but empowering sisterhood between girls-next-door and girls-on-stripper-poles. It's about time!"  Jennifer Musselman  "…Vanessa Carlisle simultaneously beckons and dissuades in a voice that is original, seductive, and uncompromisingly honest. The characters that inhabit this sharp and witty novel are troubled, impoverished, confused, lost, sexually frustrated, and intellectually unfulfilled. So…basically everyone I know."  Mike Barker  "Vanessa Carlisle and her quirky, intelligent, entertaining and fractured people come alive on these pages in a vivid, tight, confident and lapidary prose reminiscent of Yates or early Didion.…so perfect in its rhythms, word choices and inflections that you almost hear it, rather than read it." Rob Roberge