Jane Vandenburgh (born 1948) is an American novelist and memoirist.

Biography

Jane Vandenburgh was born in

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

, California and grew up in

Redondo Beach Redondo Beach (Spanish for ) is a coastal city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, located in the South Bay region of the Greater Los Angeles area. It is one of three adjacent beach cities along the southern portion of Santa Mo ...

and in the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...

. She is a fifth-generation

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

n. She holds a bachelor's degree in English literature from

California State University Long Beach California () is a state in the Western United States that lies on the Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California to the sout ...

(1971) and a master's degree (1978) in English literature with a specialization in creative writing from

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

. The title story of her master's thesis, ''The Salisbury Court Reporter'', won the

Katherine Anne Porter Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890 – September 18, 1980) was an American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, poet, and political activist. Her 1962 novel '' Ship of Fools'' was the best-selling novel in the United States that y ...

Prize for fiction in 1981. Her publisher is

Counterpoint Press Counterpoint LLC was a publishing company that Perseus Books Group launched in 2007. It was formed from the consolidation of three presses: Perseus' Counterpoint Press, Shoemaker & Hoard, and Soft Skull Press. The company published books under b ...

. Vandenburgh is the author of two novels, ''Failure to Zig-Zag'' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1989), ''The Physics of Sunset'' (Pantheon 1999), and two books of memoir, ''A Pocket History of Sex in the Twentieth Century'' (

Counterpoint In music theory, counterpoint is the relationship of two or more simultaneous musical lines (also called voices) that are harmonically dependent on each other, yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. The term originates from the Latin ...

2009), and ''The Wrong Dog Dream: A True Romance'' (Counterpoint, 2013), which is an intense parallel narrative of dog ownership and a new marriage while living in Washington, D.C.. Vandenburgh's book on the craft of fiction, ''The Architecture of the Novel: A Writer's Handbook'' (Counterpoint 2010) is a philosophical exploration of the structural elements of long-form fiction, with an introduction by writer

Anne Lamott Anne Lamott (born April 10, 1954) is an American novelist and nonfiction writer. She is also a progressive political activist, public speaker, and writing teacher. Lamott is based in Marin County, California. Her nonfiction works are largely a ...

. Once a recipient of the Mildred Sherrod Bissinger Memorial Endowed Fellowship, Vandenburgh now teaches a yearlong course in the book length narrative through the

Djerassi Artists Residency The Djerassi Artists Residency, also known as the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, is an artists and writers residency in San Mateo County, California, south of Woodside. The residency sits on a 583-acre former cattle ranch with a 12-sided bar ...

program in Woodside, California, as well as an annual workshop at Fishtrap: Writing and the West in Oregon. Vandenburgh has taught in graduate programs of literature and creative writing at University of California, Davis, Georgetown and the George Washington universities in Washington, DC, and served as Distinguished Writer in Residence at St. Mary's College, in Moraga, California. Since the late 1970s Vandenburgh has worked as a developmental editor for such publishers as San Francisco-based

Chronicle Books Chronicle Books is a San Francisco–based American publishing company that publishes books for both adults and children. History The company was established in 1967 by Phelps Dewey, an executive with Chronicle Publishing Company, then-publish ...

and for the Book Club of California. A regular columnist for ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (''The Huffington Post'' until 2017, itself often abbreviated as ''HPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and covers p ...

'', Vandenburgh published there an open letter to

Robert B. Silvers Robert Benjamin Silvers (December 31, 1929 – March 20, 2017) was an American editor who served as editor of ''The New York Review of Books'' from 1963 to 2017. Raised on Long Island, New York, Silvers graduated from the University of Chicag ...

, long-time editor of the ''

New York Review of Books New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...

'', describing the long tradition of strong support that she and other literary women have shown that publication, but questioning the preponderance of males in its reviewer roster and its review subjects. Vandenburgh is the mother of two children from a previous marriage. She is married to Jack Shoemaker, Editorial Director and Vice-President at

in a

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

, longtime publisher of

Gary Snyder Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate ...

and

Wendell Berry Wendell Erdman Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, poet, essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays o ...

, among many other writers. They live in

Point Richmond, California Point Richmond, also sometimes referred to locally as The Point, is a neighborhood in Richmond, California, United States, near the eastern end of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, between Interstate 580 and the San Francisco Bay. History Or ...

. In 1999, Vandenburgh was the Washington, D.C. coordinator of the

Million Mom March The Million Mom March was a rally held on Mother's Day, May 14, 2000 in the Washington, D.C. National Mall by the Million Mom March organization to call for stricter gun control. The march reportedly drew an estimated attendance of 500,000 to 75 ...

, a public demonstration to raise public awareness about the need for stricter gun control in the U.S."Moms Plan to March on D.C. Over Gun Laws," (Bowling Green, Kentucky) Daily News, December 17, 1999, 2-B.

References

External links

Jane Vandenburgh author website

Counterpoint Press

Jane Vandenburgh Huffington Post blog

* ttps://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/books/review/bechdel.html?_r=1& Graphic Review by Alison Bechdel of Vandenburgh's memoir, A Pocket History of Sex in the 20th Century
Interview with Jane Vandenburgh

Guest blog post
"When We Fell in Love" at ''Three Guys, One Book'' blog
"When Grace at the Bliss Cafe Calls," New Yorker, Jan. 11, 2016.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vandenburgh, Jane 1948 births Living people 20th-century American novelists American women novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women Memoirists from California