Jessica Barksdale’s sixteenth novel, What the Moon Did, and first short story collection, Trick of the Porch Light, were both published in 2023. Her third poetry collection, Let's End This Now, is forthcoming in June 2024.

A Pushcart Prize and Best-of-the-Net nominee, her short stories, poems, and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming in The Sun, North American Review, Salt Hill Journal, Arts & Letters, and So to Speak. Her work has been recognized and honored by The Sewanee Review, The Wigleaf, The North American Review, and The Ocotillo Review

Recently retired, she taught at Diablo Valley College for thirty-two years and continues to teach novel writing online for UCLA Extension and in the online MFA program for Southern New Hampshire University.