Eleanor Henderson grew up in Florida and has taught in the Department of Writing since 2010. Her latest book is the memoir Everything I Have Is Yours: A Marriage (Flatiron, 2021), which was selected for the New York Times Group Text Book Club and named a New York Times Notable Book. She is also the author of the novels The Twelve-Mile Straight (Ecco, 2017) and Ten Thousand Saints (Ecco, 2011), which was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2011 by The New York Times, was a finalist for the Award for First Fiction from The Los Angeles Times, and was adapted into a movie starring Ethan Hawke.
Eleanor’s stories and essays have appeared in publications including Agni, Ninth Letter, LitHub, Salon, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, All Things Considered, Poets & Writers, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Best American Short Stories. With the novelist Anna Solomon she is also co-editor of Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers (FSG, 2014). She has taught at James Madison University, Syracuse University, the Colgate Writers Conference, and the Chautauqua Institution.
Degrees
- M.F.A. Fiction, University of Virginia, 2005
- B.A. American Literature/Creative Writing, Middlebury College, 2001
Selected Publications
Books
- Everything I Have Is Yours: A Marriage, a memoir, Flatiron Books, 2021
- The Twelve-Mile Straight, a novel, HarperCollins/Ecco, 2017
- Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers, FSG, 2014 (co-editor)
- Ten Thousand Saints, a novel, HarperCollins/Ecco, 2011
Reviews + Essays
- "The Days Were Long and the Years Were Longer," New York Times Book Review, 2023
- "Why Did Two People So Poorly Matched Stay Together So Long?," New York Times Book Review, 2021
- "The Year of No Halloween," Salon.com, 2020
- "A Rock Band Novel—and a Portrait of the Bell-Bottomed 1970s," New York Times Book Review, 2019
- "In a Quiet Ohio Town, Who Started the Fire, and Why?," New York Times Book Review, 2017
- "More to the Story," Powells.com blog, 2017
- "The Search Continues," New York Times Book Review, 2014
- "I Wasn't Born Yesterday: The Beauty of Backstory," Poets & Writers Magazine, 2013
- "In Search of the Pit," Barnes & Noble blog, 2011
- “From Pittsburgh to Sitka,” Virginia Quarterly Review, 2007
Selected Awards
- New York Times Notable Book, 2021
- Robert Ryan Professorship in the Humanities, 2019
- Summer Grants for Faculty Research, Ithaca College, 2019, 2011
- Research Fellowship, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University, 2016
- Faculty Excellence Award, Ithaca College Center for Faculty Excellence, 2011-2012
- Finalist for the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, Los Angeles Times, 2011
- 10 Best Books of the Year, New York Times, 2011
Fall 2023 Courses
- ICSM 10800: Vegan Studies: Past, Present, Future (Ithaca Seminar)
- WRTG 41000: Writing the Other (Senior Seminar)
Selected Past Courses
- Narratives of Mental Illness
- Distance + Discourse
- The Art of Time
- Short Stories on the Screen
- Writing Historical Fiction
- Writing the Novella
Appointments
- Chair, Department of Writing, 2020 to 2023
- Robert Ryan Professor in the Humanities, 2019 to 2022
- Founding Co-Director, New Voices Literary Festival, 2013 to 2022
- Founding Director, Ithaca Writers Institute, 2013 to 2015
Website