Jessica L. Pavia

Official Writing and Teaching Portfolio

Jessica L. Pavia is a Pushcart Prize nominated creative nonfiction writer based in Rochester, NY. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and currently teaches first year writing at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her writing has been published in Electric Literature, Longreads, Catapult!, Roxane Gay's The Audacity, Columbia Journal, Breadcrumbs Magazine, The Sheepshead Review, and Barzakh Magazine. Her column, "In Defense of Not Writing," appears biweekly in Write or Die Magazine, and she is a freelance writer with the Rochester CITY Newspaper. Every Saturday, you can find her hosting a free, community-driven writing hour with the non-profit, Writers & Books.

Jessica is currently finalizing her memoir, HER PARTING IS MY PAIN, which examines what it means to be haunted by the tattered remnants of female friendships. Through scene-driven writing, literary analysis, and cultural references, HER PARTING IS MY PAIN attempts to understand the intimacy found only in female friendships and untangle the historical, societal, unknowable web they spin.