Tessa Fontaine is the author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, finalist for the Utah Book Award, and best book of 2018 from Southern Living, Amazon Editors, Refinery29, PopMatters, and the New York Post. Tessa spent the 2013 season performing with the last American traveling circus sideshow, the World of Wonders. Other writing can be found in Outside, Creative Nonfiction, Glamour, The Believer and The New York Times Book Review. Raised outside San Francisco, Tessa has taught in prisons and jails, led educational programs for New York Times Student Journeys, designed Experiences and Trips for Atlas Obscura, founded Salt Lake City’s Writers in the Schools program, and taught creative writing in colleges and universities around the country. These days, Tessa lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
Project Description: I’m writing about violence, mostly violence against women, and the price of collective safety. The novel takes place in a small community in Northern California, where a group of people believe that in their valley, women can’t be hurt. They are immune from violence. The story follows a young woman whose mother disappears, and what she uncovers as she searches for the truth.