Chavisa Woods


Chavisa Woods is a New York City-based author, and winner of the Shirley Jackson Award.

Background

Woods was born and raised in a rural farm town, Sandoval Illinois, and lived from 2000 to 2003 in St. Louis, Missouri, where she was a resident of the anarchist collective C.A.M.P.. She moved in 2003 to New York City, where she resided and worked for A Gathering of the Tribes, art gallery-salon and small press, owned and operated by novelist and professor Steve Cannon.

Work

Woods is the author of four books: "100 Times ", "Things To Do When You're Goth in the Country", The Albino Album, and "Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind."
Her work has received praise from The New York Times, Publisher's Weekly, The Seattle Review of Books and many other media outlets.
Woods has presented lectures and conducted and workshops on short fiction and poetry at a number of academic institutions, including: New York University, Mount Holyoke College, Penn State, Sarah Lawrence College, Bard College, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn Tech, Hugo and the New School. She currently leads select writing workshops throughout the year through Hugo House and Catapult.

Awards

Woods received the Shirley Jackson Award in 2018, for a story in her collection, Things To Do When You're Goth in the Country.
Woods was the recipient of the Kathy Acker Award in writing, 2018, and the Shirley Jackson Award.
Woods was awarded the Cobalt Fiction Prize in 2013 for her short work of poetic prose entitled "Things to do when you're Goth in the Country".
Woods was the 2008 recipient of the Jerome Foundation Travel Grant for Literature.
Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind was a finalist for the 21st Lambda Literary Award for Debut Fiction.

Other publications

Woods has published prose and poetry in a number of magazines, including: