Tara Stillions Whitehead

Writer, Filmmaker, Educator


Unsolicited Press, 2022
2022 Aspen Words Prize Nominee
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PRAISE FOR THE YEAR OF THE MONSTER

“The stories in The Year of the Monster are tender, truthful, fiery and finely wrought. Tara Stillions Whitehead has built a collection that leaves little doubt as to her range and mastery as a storyteller. This book could be studied at the level of language alone as her sentences are both elegant and exacting. The people who inhabit these stories have been through some things and there are no easy answers, but let this book serve as a short course in self-acceptance, grit, honesty, and survival. I’m in awe of Whitehead’s intelligence and heart, fully on display in these pages. I know she has many more books ahead of her. I can’t wait to read every one of them.” – Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works

“If you mix a cocktail of Octavia Butler, Mary Robison, and early Jayne Anne Phillips, you might get something approaching Tara Stillions Whitehead’s style. Yet her style is highly original and all her own:  shape-shifting and subtle.  Her language packs real power. The stories in The Year of the Monster deal with love and unlove, math and physics, deception, truth, and loss – – both personal and cultural.  As they navigate life’s obstacles – both spiritual and societal — her characters show resilience and stamina even when darkness looms. ‘God and Laundry’ is one of the best short stories I’ve read in years. But read them all, every story – from cover to cover. The entire collection sparkles.” – Larry Fondation, Martyrs and Holymen

Events, & Readings

4.27.23 – @7pm – San Diego Literary Festival – Featured Writer – Grossmont College
San Diego, CA

6.10.23 – @1pm – The Writer’s Center – Reading and Q & A – in person
Bethesda, MD

7.7.23 – @7pm – Author reading and signing (w/Monica Prince) at Midtown Scholar
Harrisburg, PA

9.30.23 – @ Berry College – Reading and Q & A in-person
Rome, GA10.21.24 – @7pm – Writer-in-residence reading and Q&A
Lebanon Valley College, PA

Listed as a notable essay in the Best American Essays 2022 anthology edited by Alexander Chee, “The Mother Must Die and Other Lies Fairy Tales Told Me,” a hybrid essay about Anne Sexton, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Cinderella, and motherhood/addiction, published in the Gold Issue of Fairy Tale Review was also nominated for a 2022 Pushcart Prize!

Sincere thanks to the editors at Porcupine Literary Journal for nominating “A Lesson on Endings” for both a 2022 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net!

12.3.2021 – New interview about Blood Histories, fairy tales, creative nonfiction, and recovery, up at Fractured Lit: “Omission Serves a Purpose: An Interview with Tara Stillions Whitehead.”

9.29.2021
Huge thanks to X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine for nominating
“Undertow” for a 2021 Best of the Net!

Wiggie! Wiggie! Wiggie!

“Seven Bodies I Didn’t Leave Behind,” originally published in HAD (Hobart), selected for Wigleaf Top 50 2021 by Molly Gaudry!

Huge thanks to the series and selecting editors at Wigleaf!

from X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine June 2021 newsletter

Selected Writings