JCU to Welcome Rachel Cantor as Summer 2024 Writer in Residence
John Cabot University is pleased to announce that author Rachel Cantor will be the Summer 2024 Writer in Residence for the JCU Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation.
Rachel Cantor is the author of three novels: Half-Life of a Stolen Sister (Soho Press 2023), Good on Paper (Melville House 2016), and A Highly Unlikely Scenario (Melville House 2014). Half-Life has been called “unique and unforgettable” (Booklist), “intriguing” and “a breath of fresh air” (Publishers Weekly), “masterful” and “captivating” (New England Review), and “Innovative. Infectious. Insightful. Indelible” (Historical Novels Review). Good on Paper, the story of a translator from Italian, was the recipient of starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers’ Weekly, and was praised by the New York Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Los Angeles Review of Books, Bookforum, Guardian, and others. A Highly Unlikely Scenario, which takes place in part in thirteenth-century Rome, was well reviewed by the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Publishers’ Weekly (which gave it a starred review), Washington Post, the Independent, and others.
More than two dozen of Cantor’s short stories have been published in venues such as the Paris Review, One Story, Ninth Letter, Kenyon Review, Fence, and New England Review. They have been anthologized five times, nominated for three Pushcart Prizes, and short-listed by Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Awards, and Best of the Workshops. She has written essays about fiction for National Public Radio, the Guardian, Publishers’ Weekly, and other publications, and has presented her work more than fifty times at bookstores, reading series, conferences, libraries, cultural centers, universities, and fundraisers in twenty cities in the U.S. and abroad. She has also benefited from three dozen artist-colony fellowships, including eight overseas (in Belgium, France, Germany, Scotland, and Spain).
Cantor received her master’s degree in creative writing from the Writing Seminars of the Johns Hopkins University, a master’s degree in international development from the SIT Graduate Institute, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Yale University. She grew up in Rome, where she attended OSR and St. Stephen’s schools, and in her twenties, she lived and worked in New York City, France, Australia, India, and Pakistan. She now consults as a writer/editor with international nonprofits that improve health in low-income countries. As such, she’s worked everywhere from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe. Not surprisingly, much of her writing features international settings. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she is working on a series of speculative novels set in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Says JCU Creative Writing professor Moira Egan, “I know that Rachel Cantor’s ties to Rome run very deep and she’s thrilled that she’ll be joining us as Writer in Residence this summer. And the students will certainly benefit from her presence: her writing is intelligent, quirky, and utterly enjoyable. “
The Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation brings together students and faculty from around the world to study in the historic center of Rome. This Summer, the Institute will offer workshops in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Classes are taught in English and meet from Monday to Thursday for five weeks (May 20 to June 21, 2024).
Past Writers in Residence for the JCU Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation have included Australian poet Susan Bradley Smith (2023) Canadian-American poet James Arthur (2022), critically acclaimed novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez (2018), award-winning novelist Susan Minot (2016), National Book Critics Circle Award winner Edmund White (2015), Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri (2013), and U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins (2013).
