Features


From insightful interviews to engaging essays, Jessica's work resonates with readers and critics alike.

Learn more >
March 2017

Seance City, Florida

Most of my family is dead. I see them all the time, although it’s more accurate to say I feel them. Sometimes I think if I could turn my head quickly enough I’d catch them just behind my shoulders, but I never do.

GO TO

Bitter Southerner

>>

August 2016

Night Time Is A Place

It’s August. The heat weighs down on the South into the wee hours, and bored suburban teenagers sneak quietly out their bedroom windows to find each other, to find community in a world that isn’t their parents’.

GO TO

Bitter Southerner

>>

November 2015

You in the Beige

In some circles, Southern is still an unsettling quirk, an excuse for caricature—like the mute and heroic Boo Radley or wanton Daisy Mae Scragg, heartthrob of Dogpatch.

GO TO

Atlanta Magazine

>>

January 2015

Write What You Don’t Know

As nonfiction writers, we’re proud of our fealty to the truth. We don’t make things up. Or, if we do make things up, we employ the deftness and elegance of signal phrases.

GO TO

Creative NonFiction

>>

December 2013

Screenplay, “Outside the Wire”

In this short film made for the 48 Hour Film Festival, we explore the sense of reality and memory, in a nod to a famous scene from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

GO TO

SuperLux

>>

Pre-Order Now!

The World To See

When teenager Nadine Harvey helps her best friend hide a disturbing secret, she’s also concealing her own deepest truth: she’ll do almost anything to be wanted.

Learn more >

Events

Join Jessica Handler for writing workshops, book signings, and engaging conversations with award-winning authors!  

Apr 22, 2026
to
Apr 22, 2026

Main Character Energy: Writing Resonant Characters

Your characters are the lifeblood of your stories, but writers sometimes overlook techniques that can make a character feel real on the page. Whether you’re inventing, researching, or remembering the characters you’re crafting, this webinar will introduce you to methods for uncovering the motivations, quirks, and inner lives of the people populating your pages. In this prompt-driven webinar, you will explore proven techniques for writing memorable, believable, and indelible characters for both fiction and nonfiction prose.

May 1, 2026
to
May 1, 2026

Manuscript coaching at the Atlanta Writers' Club Conference

A fifteen minute 1:1 conversation about your submitted manuscript pages, the publishing landscape, and the writers' life