Jill Alexander Essbaum

Jill Alexander Essbaum is the author of Heaven (University Press of New England, 2000) and Oh Forbidden (Pecan Grove Press, 2005). Her work has appeared in The Christian Century, The National Poetry Review, 42opus, No Tell Motel, MiPOesias, Poetry, Rhino, and other publications.

Jill cites the following artists as indelible influences: Simon Armitage, A.E. Stallings, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, John Bunyan, Vassar Miller, and Nick Cave.

Her poem "On Reading Poorly Transcribed Erotica" appears in No Tell Motel and was anthologized in The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel and The Best American Erotic Poems (Scribner 2008, edited by David Lehman).

Jill is currently at work on a new collection of poems, and an as-of-yet untitled novel about the daughter of a pastor in a small Texas town whose mother does some terribly wretched things.

She lives in Zürich, Switzerland.

Harlot (October 2007)