Quick Facts
Biography
Jessa Crispin (born c. 1978 in Lincoln, Kansas) is a critic and the editor-in-chief of Bookslut, a litblog and webzine founded in 2002. Crispin is a publishing outsider who started the blog on the side while working at Planned Parenthood in Austin, Texas, and came to support herself by writing and editing the site full-time. In 2009, Crispin moved to Berlin. Chicago novelist Charles Blackstone is Bookslut's Managing Editor. On March 9, 2016, Crispin announced Bookslut's last issue would be in May; the archives will remain on the website.
Bookslut has received mentions in many national and international newspapers, including the New York Times Book Review and Washington Post. In 2005 Crispin kept a diary about her work on books for The Guardian.
Crispin had a regular column called "Bookslut" in the online cultural journal The Smart Set, published by Drexel University. She was a book critic for NPR and contributor to PBS's Need to Know. She has also written for the Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times and Toronto Globe and Mail. She wrote the afterword to Melville House Books' reissue of Heinrich Böll's Billiards at Half-past Nine.
Works
- The Dead Ladies Project: Exiles, Expats, and Ex-Countries (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015, ISBN 9780226278452)
- The Creative Tarot: A Modern Guide to an Inspired Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016, ISBN 9781501120237)
- Feigel, Lara (2015-12-11). "The Dead Ladies Project: Exiles, Expats, and Ex-Countries by Jessa Crispin review – a compelling literary journey". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- "Jessa Crispin's 'Dead Ladies Project' braids travelogue, literary criticism and emotional honesty". latimes.com. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- Tribune, Chicago. "Review: 'The Dead Ladies Project' by Jessa Crispin". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
- "Jessa Crispin embraces her inner mystical weirdo". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2016-02-27.