Shanna is kind of unclear on why writers’ bios are always in the third person, but she doesn’t want to go rogue this early in the game, so:
Shanna Mahin is a middle-aged, high school dropout with a fierce desire to overcome what her 9th-grade English teacher predicted would be a lifetime of wasted potential. She mourns his passing for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the missed opportunity to point out that she has finally transcended a lifetime of shitty jobs—including dog walker (which was actually kind of great), cook, telemarketer, celebrity personal assistant, theme restaurant waitress, and failed drug dealer, all of which she feels comfortable saying, because the statute of limitations has got to be up by now—to become a bona fide writer. Yep. For money and everything.
Recent fellowships and residencies include the MacDowell Colony, the Norman Mailer Writers Colony, PEN Center USA Emerging Voices, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Writers at Work, and the Eda Kriseova Creative Nonfiction Fellowship at the Prague Summer Program, among others.
Her debut novel, Oh! You Pretty Things, is out now from Dutton Books.