Jo Ann Beard Explained

Jo Ann Beard (born 1955) is an American essayist.

Life

Beard was born in 1955 in Moline, Illinois.^[1] She graduated from the University of Iowa with a BFA degree in art, and from the Nonfiction Writing Program with an MFA in creative nonfiction. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.^[2]

Beard previously worked as a managing editor for a physics journal at the University of Iowa, and was a colleague of the victims of the University of Iowa shooting, which became a subject for her work.

Her writing has appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, Tin House and O, The Oprah Magazine.

Awards

• 1997: Whiting Award
• 2005: Guggenheim Fellow^[3]

Works

Essays

• "The Fourth State of Matter", The New Yorker, June 24, 1996
• "Undertaker, Please Drive Slow", Tin House, Issue #12, Summer 2002^[4]
• "Maybe It Happened", O, The Oprah Magazine, August 2008
• "The Longest Night: Saying Goodbye to My Beloved Pet", O, The Oprah Magazine, June 2009

Books

• Book: The Boys of My Youth. Little Brown & Co. 1999. 978-0-316-08525-0 .
• Book: In Zanesville. 2011 .
• Book: Festival Days. Little Brown & Co. 2021.
• Book: Cheri. Serpent's Tail. 2023.

Anthology contributions

• Book: Best American Essays of 1997 . registration . . 1997. 978-0-395-85694-9 . Ian Frazier . Robert Atwan .
• Book: The Best American Essays 2007. . Robert Atwan. October 10, 2007. Houghton Mifflin. 978-0-618-70927-4. registration.
• Book: https://books.google.com/books?id=wKmKh7slk6wC&q=Jo+Ann+Beard&pg=PT599. The Fourth State of Matter. Touchstone anthology of contemporary creative nonfiction: work from 1970 to the present. Lex Williford . Michael Martone. Simon and Schuster. 2007. 978-1-4165-3174-6 .
• Book: https://books.google.com/books?id=gwP910owDiAC&q=Jo+Ann+Beard&pg=PA267. Out There. A Woman's Passion for Travel: True Stories of World Wanderlust. Marybeth Bond . Pamela Michael. Travelers' Tales. 2004. 978-1-932361-14-8 .

External links

• "Meet a rare creature: the wholly talented, wholly modest Jo Ann Beard", Book Page, February 1998
• "A Conversation with Jo Ann Beard", nidus, No. 3 Fall 2002.
• "Jo Ann Beard Interviewed by Michael Gardner", Mary Literary Journal
• Profile at The Whiting Foundation
• "The Essay That Made Jo Ann Beard Want to Write Nonfiction", The New York Times, March 11, 2021.

Notes and References

1. News: Books of the Month: From Anne Enright’s The Wren, The Wren to Wifedom by Anna Funder. The Independent. Martin. Chilton. July 2023.
2. News: Writing Faculty - Sarah Lawrence College. 2018-08-29. en.
3. Web site: Jo Ann Beard – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation . 2010-01-05 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110604005323/http://www.gf.org/fellows/914-jo-ann-beard . 2011-06-04 . dead.
4. Beard. Jo Ann. Summer 2002. Undertaker, Please Drive Slow. Tin House. 12.