Features

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

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.

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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’.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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SuperLux

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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.

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Events

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

Mar 20, 2026

Lost Southern Voices Festival: Writing Historical Fiction

I'll be moderating a panel about the craft of historical fiction at the Lost Southern Voices Festival with Tony Grooms ("Bombingham" & "The Vain Conversation,") and Carolyn Curry ("Trudy's Awakening") at the Decatur (Ga.) Library.

Link Register here >

Mar 27, 2026

In conversation with Leah Weiss

In conversation with Leah Weiss at Poe & Co. Milton, Georgia.

Link Register here >