Jane Harrington

Education

• MFA Fiction from Carlow University, 2015
• MA Teaching of Writing and Literature, George Mason University, 2010
• PostBacc Cert, Environmental Management, George Mason University, 1997
• BS Business/Decision Sciences, George Mason University, 1989

Research

• The Great Hunger of Ireland (folk narratives and history)
• 19th Century poet/activist Lady Wilde
• Fairy tales by 17th Century French salon women
• Issues in contemporary children’s literature

Teaching

• Creative Writing Workshops: Intro to CW; Intro to Fiction; Writing for Children
• Literature: Introduction to the Fairy Tale
• Controversies in Children’s Literature

Selected Publications

Fiction and creative nonfiction

• Women of the Fairy Tale Resistance (Black Dog and Leventhal 2025)

• In Circling Flight, winner of the Brighthorse Prize for the Novel (Brighthorse Books 2022) and longlisted for the Crooks Corner Book Prize (2023)

• In Circling Flight: A Craft Talk, Agee Online Reading Series, Pellissippi State (Winter 2022-23)

• "Nudging a Novel from its Nest: What I’ve Learned," an essay in the Triskelion, Carlow University (Winter 2022)

• "To Lady Wilde (Amongst the Trial Men of Reading Gaol)"in New Square, Spring 2021 (Vol 3, Issue 2)

• "Béarra" in BIG FICTION, Winter 2020

• "Settling” in Mountains Piled Upon Mountains: Appalachian Nature Writing in the Anthropocene, ed. Jessica S. Cory (West Virginia U P 2019); short-listed for the 2016 Colm Tóibín International Short Story Award, Wexford Literary Festival, Ireland

• "We Are All in the Gutter, But Some of Us Are Looking at ‘The Star-Child,’ a Fairy Tale By Oscar Wilde" in New Square, Fall 2019 (Vol 2, Issue 1)

• "The Elf Lord,"Port Yonder Press, fiction feature, Nov. 2017; Eastern Iowa Review, Best Lyric Prose Plus, Issue 7, 2018

• "You. There. Now." in Feminine Collective, June 2017

• “Ossein Pith” in Eastern Iowa Review, Issue 3, 2017

• “The Die is Cast” and “An Apology Tour” in Who Want the World Like It Is? A 2016 Election Anthology, Birds Piled Loosely Press, January 2017

• “Unanswered” in Copperfield Review, February 2016

• “All God’s Children Gonna Take a Ride” in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Volume 7, 2015 (also nominated for a Pushcart Prize and short-listed for Ireland’s 2014 Sean O’Faolain International Short Story Prize)

• “The Waiting Room” in Mom Egg Review, Volume 13, 2015

• “Watching—the Fall” in Portland Review, 2015

• “Sirius” in Chautauqua, Volume 11, 2014

Fiction and nonfiction for the youth market

• My Best Friend, the Atlantic Ocean, and Other Great Bodies Standing Between Me and My Life With Giulio (Lerner 2008), a Junior Library Guild selection

• Four Things My Geeky-Jock-of-a-Best-Friend Must Do In Europe (Lerner/Scholastic 2006), a Junior Library Guild selection

• Extreme Pets! (Scholastic 2006), a selection by the Children’s Book Council and International Reading Association; an American Library Association/YALSA “Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers”

• Lucy’s (Completely Cool & Totally True) E-Journal (Scholastic paperback 2001), a Scholastic Book Fairs national bestseller