Vanessa Blakeslee‘s debut short story collection, Train Shots, is the winner of the 2014 IPPY Gold Medal in Short Fiction and long-listed for the 2014 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Blakeslee’s writing has appeared in The Southern Review, Green Mountains Review, The Paris Review Daily, The Globe and Mail, Kenyon Review Online, and Bustle among many others. Winner of the inaugural Bosque Fiction Prize, she has also been awarded grants and residencies from Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Banff Centre, Ledig House, the Ragdale Foundation, and in 2013 received the Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature from the Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. Her novel Juventud (Curbside Splendor Publishing) explores the idealism of youth, the complexities of a ravaged country, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.
