Jessica Anya Blau is the author of the just-released novel, The Wonder Bread Summer (HarperCollins/Harper Perennial). Her novel, Drinking Closer to Home (HarperCollins/Harper Perennial) was called "a raging success" and "unrelentingly side-splittingly funny."  It was featured in Target stores as a “Breakout Book” and made many Best Books of the Year lists for 2011.
     Jessica’s first novel, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties (HarperCollins/Harper Perennial), was picked as a Best Summer Book by the Today Show, the New York Post and New York Magazine.  The San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers chose it as one of the Best Books of the Year.
     Jessica wrote the screenplay for Franny, a film staring Frances Fisher and Steve Howey.  Franny is now in post-production in Los Angeles and New York.
     Jessica’s short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and have won or been nominated for many awards including The Pushcart Prize.  Her essays appear in The Huffington Post, Salon, the AOL homepage, The Nervous Breakdown and Redroom.
     Several of Jessica’s stories and essays have been anthologized in books such as The Prose Reader: Essays for Thinking, Reading and Writing; and Dirty Words: a Literary Encyclopedia of Sex.
     Currently Jessica is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Goucher College.  She also teaches at Johns Hopkins University where she attended The Writing Seminars.