Jessica Manack

creative communicator in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Nice to meet you!

I'm a writer and editor based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania whose recent interests include Appalachian history, especially that of its women residents, Forest County and the PA Wilds, conservation and forest stewardship, parenting, and art on paper, particularly correspondence art. I am honored to be the recipient of a 2022 Curious Creators Grant and a Postcard Cabins Artist Fellowship, and the winner of the Five South Spring 2022 poetry contest. My work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best Small Fictions, and I was a finalist for the Deming Foundation Money for Women award in 2023. I periodically teach writing workshops, and I'm also the Development Editor at Belt Magazine and a poetry reader at TriQuarterly.

Read samples of my work below. Work has recently appeared in Still: the Journal, The Drift, Sheila-na-Gig online, The Watershed Journal, Impost, Litro Magazine, Women Speak, Fine Print, Dinner Bell, The Ekphrastic Review, Lunch Ticket, Arachne Press and SWWIM Every Day, Anti-Heroin Chic, Dunes Review, Hoot, Doubleback Review and Whale Road Review. My articles about parenting have recently appeared on Insider, YMC.ca and Her View From Home. My work was also included in the Sidewalk Poetry Project in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Find my words on Fifth Avenue!

As the winner of the 2023 Sheila-Na-Gig Editions' First Chapbook Prize, my poetry collection Gastromythology was released in 2024. It was a Category Finalist in the 2025 Eric Hoffer Awards. Order here.

Do you have a need for writing, proofreading or editing services? Contact me using the form below.

UPCOMING APPEARANCES