Jessica C. Wheeler

About Jessica C. Wheeler

For me, writing is a place to land: the steady ground beneath life's detours, and my only way to sort the seemingly unsortable. I don’t write so much to be understood, as to understand. I'm drawn to language that tests what we carry, what we bury, and what inevitably breaks through. Without the echo of reflection, all would simply feel incomplete.

In coastal Connecticut, I share a life with my husband, Dan—the sole fluent speaker of my offbeat dialect, and a connoisseur of peculiar humor rivaled only by my own—and our two daughters, Morgan and Camryn, who share a roof, a last name, and absolutely nothing else. They are everything.

My debut short story collection, She’s Fine, explores the contradictions of modern womanhood: private reckonings, quiet absurdities, and the unspoken negotiations that shape daily life. Like much of my work, it examines the unseen effort required to keep composure in a world that rarely notices the effort.

Over the years, my work has appeared in The Connecticut Bards Poetry Review (2025), Grief Dialogues, Poetry Festival, and multiple anthologies. I was named a Recognized Writer by Fanstory.com in 2024 and ranked among their top poets in 2023. My poem “Beneath the Tranquil Sheen” was selected as Poem of the Month on Poetry.com.

I am currently developing two novels while continuing to publish poetry and short fiction.

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