Jane Ciabattari

Bio

Jane Ciabattari was born and raised in Emporia, Kansas, in a family that emphasized literature and the arts (her sister, Denise Low-Weso, is a former Kansas poet laureate). She began her writing career as a high school columnist for The Emporia Gazette. She studied creative writing at Stanford University (B.A.) and San Francisco State University (M.A.).
Stealing the Fire, her first collection of short stories, has been compared to Grace Paley’s Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, and the fiction of Joan Didion and Robert Stone. Kirkus Reviews wrote, “Ciabattari is a master of transformation as she gives these stories of loss, woe, crisis and collapse the salutary and sometimes bracing pleasures of plain good fiction.” Library Journal wrote, “Ciabattari’s word choice is simple yet powerful and it is this power that distinguishes her fiction. Writers and readers of literary fiction will enjoy these stories. Recommended for public libraries and academic collections.” Publishers Weekly noted, “Ciabattari displays a deft sense of control throughout, balancing character, dialogue and scene construction with assurance, and is equally sensitive to male protagonists. This book makes a strong first step toward earning both an audience and critical praise for Ciabattari.”
Her short stories have been published in The North American Review, Denver Quarterly, Hampton Shorts (which honored her with an Editors’ Choice STUBBY Award in 1996), The East Hampton Star, Blueline, Caprice, and Redbook, which nominated her for a National Magazine Award. She has been awarded fiction fellowships from the New York State Foundation for the Arts, The MacDowell Colony and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and has taught at Squaw Valley Community of Writers, New York University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She is a Contributing Editor to Parade Magazine and has worked as managing editor of California Living, the Sunday magazine of the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle; managing editor of Redbook, editor in chief of DIAL, the public television magazine; Senior Consulting Editor in Fiction at McCall’s–and as a reporter and columnist for the Montana Standard in Butte, Montana. For Parade she has traveled widely (Havana, Hong Kong, Marrakech, Paris, Prague, Rome, Shanghai) and interviewed hundreds, including Sherman Alexie, Isabel Allende, Halle Berry, Sandra Bullock, Jimmy Carter, John Cusack, Michael Douglas, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, Sylvester Stallone, Emma Thompson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Renee Zellweger. She has served on the editorial board of Story Magazine, is past president of the Women’s Media Group, a member of the board of the Overseas Press Club, a member of the National Book Critics Circle and the Authors Guild. Her book reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times (Alice Munro, Richard Ford, Chitra Divakaruni, Carol Shields, Alessandro Baricco), the Washington Post (Stephen King), the San Francisco Chronicle (Andrea Lee, Ann Packer) and Columbia Journalism Review; film reviews in The East Hampton Star. With her husband Mark, who also is a writer, she divides her time between Sag Harbor, New York City and Windham, New York.
TITLE OF BOOK: Stealing the Fire: Stories, Canio’s Editions, 2002. ISBN 1-886435-11-1
PUBLISHER: Canio’s Editions, caniosbooks@hamptons.com – 290 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY 11963, 631-725-4926. Book delivery can be discussed when contact is made.