Hi! I’m Jessica A. Kent

I’ve been writing and studying fiction craft for 25 years. My BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College laid the foundation of my writing craft knowledge and how to critique others' work. My MA in Literature from Harvard helped deepen my understanding as I studied and parsed great literature.

I’ve also read for literary magazines and even founded one myself, which gave me a deep understanding of what makes a submission stand out . . . and what causes a good story to fall short. That perspective informs how I approach editing: with both the writer’s intent and the reader’s experience in mind.

In the year-long Novel Incubator program, I helped nine other classmates develop their novels into publication-ready work. I've helped many writers develop and refine their drafts, several of which went on to publication, and I've also applied everything I've learned to my own fiction writing.

Finally, I’ve also applied all of this knowledge to the literature classes I now run, as I guide participants through understanding how texts were built, and how authors used various literary elements to tell their story.

A little bit more about me:

I’m the founder and director of Literary Boston, a website that covers the local literary community, and other past literary roles include library assistant, bookseller, and book festival director. I hold a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson and a Master’s in Literature from Harvard, where my thesis on Moby-Dick and Calvinism won the Director’s Prize. My short fiction has appeared the North American Review, the Emerson Review, and others, and has received the Leah Lovenheim Award for Short Fiction. I recently graduated from GrubStreet's Novel Incubator program, where I’m working on a novel about paramedics in 1970s Boston.