Jessica Nordell
Jessica (Jess, J.D.) Nordell is an American writer.
Early life and education
Nordell was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Nordell attended MIT and received a B.A. in physics from Harvard University. She later earned a certificate in visual art from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and an MFA in poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was the Martha Meier Renk Distinguished Poetry Fellow.
Writing
Nordell was a staff comedy writer from 2003-2005 for A Prairie Home Companion[1][2] a live radio variety show hosted by Garrison Keillor. While on staff, she co-created and produced the interview series Literary Friendships, featuring writer pairs Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, Sandra Cisneros and Joy Harjo, Michael Cunningham and Marie Howe, Robert Bly and Donald Hall, and Dana Gioia and Kay Ryan. The series won a 2006 Gracie Award from American Women in Radio and Television.[3]
Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Slate, and Salon .
Nordell's poems have appeared in FIELD. Her essay "Another One Rides the Cometbus," an appreciation of Aaron Cometbus's Cometbus magazine, appeared in the essay collection Before the Mortgage: Real Stories of Brazen Loves, Broken Leases, and the Perplexing Pursuit of Adulthood.
From 2006-2007, Nordell was a freelance journalist and the associate producer for Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett,.[4]
Publications
- Essays
- Before the Mortgage: Real Stories of Brazen Loves, Broken Leases, and the Perplexing Pursuit of Adulthood (Amini, Christina and Rachel Hutton, eds. Simon & Schuster, 2006)
- Home Sweet Prairie Home, Salon (September, 2006)
- Positions of Power: How female ambition is shaped, Slate.com (November 21, 2006)
- The Visitor, The New York Times (November 2, 2008)