Stephanie J. Andersen
Writer, Teacher
I believe in the power of stories to navigate, discover, create, inspire, and connect.
About Stephanie
Storyteller at Heart
Stephanie J. Andersen teaches creative writing and composition at Reading Area Community College in Pennsylvania. In addition to being a writer of essays, fiction, and poetry, she is a breast-cancer survivor, runner, birdwatcher, and climate activist. She lives in Blandon, Pennsylvania with her husband, daughters, dog, cat, and birds.
Her work is Notable in the 2009 and 2015 Best American Essays and has three times been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. Her words have appeared in Wilma! Women's Magazine; Brain, Child Magazine; Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, & Abortion; Stoneboat Literary; The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Dallas Morning News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Australia's Sydney Morning Herald, Hippocampus Magazine, Twist in Time Literary Magazine, The Sierra Club, Literary Mama, Under the Gum Tree, and Empty Mirror.
"Stephanie Andersen’s nonfiction has everything I love about this genre: page-turning stories, thoughtful reflection, and unforgettable characters. She aims for the heart—and you feel it long after you finish the last sentence."
Jay Varner, author of Nothing Left to Burn
"This: But now we stood ablaze in her words with no desire to put out the flame. That’s how I feel when I read Stephanie Andersen’s prose. I start to read, perhaps tired, perhaps distracted, and every time I am suddenly washed down a chute of emotion that takes me to both tears and hunger to feel more, in seconds. I am grateful and challenged and inspired and devastated and several other things by the end of any of Stephanie’s pieces. Her work doesn’t feel merely ‘literary’—it feels like the human heart pounded into an injection of words, of which you feel the prick and the rush, and you smile and weep."
Eli Hastings, author of Clearly Now, the Rain: A Memoir of Love and Other Trips
“Stephanie’s writing is honest and authentic. Woven with vivid detail and well-drawn scenes, readers will remember her stories a long time after a first—or second—reading.”