Summary
Gayle Brandeis is the author, most recently, of the memoir The Art of Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother’s Suicide (Beacon Press), which Kirkus, in a starred review, calls a “A uniquely graceful, gorgeously written and composed collage of grief, misunderstanding, love, and an attempt at familial closure through art and prose” and the poetry collection The Selfless Bliss of the Body (Finishing Line Books), which former US Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera calls “a monumental achievement.”
Her other books include Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperOne), and the novels The Book of Dead Birds (HarperCollins), which won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction of Social Engagement, Self Storage (Ballantine), Delta Girls (Ballantine), and My Life with the Lincolns (Henry Holt), which received a Silver Nautilus Book Award and was chosen as a state-wide read in Wisconsin. Her poetry, essays, and short fiction have been widely published and have received numerous honors, including a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award and a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2016.
Gayle has taught at universities, libraries, community centers and writing conferences around the country. She is a founding member of the Women Creating Peace Collective and served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014. Her essay on the meaning of liberty was one of three included in the Statue of Liberty’s Centennial time capsule in 1986, when she was 18. Currently living in Incline Village, NV, she is mom to two adult children and one preschooler.
Professional certifications
- MFA, Creative Writing/Fiction, Antioch University
- B.A., “Poetry and Movement: Arts of Expression, Meditation and Healing”, University of Redlands