Kadlec ’10 will teach memoir course as Visiting Writer

Cornell’s Department of English and Creative Writing is bringing Jeanna Kadlec ’10 to campus Block 2 (Sept. 23–Oct. 16, 2024) to teach a Distinguished Visiting Writer seminar on memoir writing.

This marks the first time an alum has returned to teach as a Distinguished Visiting Writer. Kadlec is also serving as this year’s judge for the English department’s Open Field Tull Prose Prize.

Kadlec’s 2022 memoir, “Heretic,” was published by HarperCollins and named one of People Magazine’s Best New Books, a Favorite Nonfiction title by Electric Literature, one of SELF Magazine’s Best Books of the Year, and one of Autostraddle’s Best Queer Books of the year.

Kadlec is a Brooklyn, New York-based writer, astrologer, and teacher whose work bridges the literary, the spiritual, the magical, and the mundane. She works with writers and artists who know that creative living and the business of making a creative living don’t have to cancel each other out.

In ENG 377, Advanced Memoir, students will explore the genre of contemporary memoir as they venture to make their own mark on this corner of the literary world. They’ll examine the structure and stakes of memoir and more advanced concepts such as experimenting with hybridity, considering their own ethics, and making space for the unreal. Students will also learn how memoir is sold in the publishing world, including how to query agents, how book proposals work, and the benefits of traditional publishing vs. self-publishing. Each student will complete the course with a polished chapter as well as with a complete outline of their book. The class will conclude with a New York City-style literary reading in which the students share their work.

Kadlec majored in English, politics, and women’s studies at Cornell. She wrote an essay for the Cornell Report in 2023.