About

The Short Version

Jennifer McGaha is the author of three works of creative nonfiction including The Joy Document, a collection of fifty essays celebrating midlife (coming November 19!), Flat Broke with Two Goats, a 2018 OverDrive Big Library Read, and Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out, a Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award finalist.

Her nonfiction and creative nonfiction work has also appeared in many magazines and literary journals including Image, The Huffington Post, The New Pioneer, Lumina, PANK, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Brevity, Bitter Southerner, Crab Creek Review, River Teeth, and others.

Jennifer has led writing workshops through Hugo House, Flatiron Writers Room, the North Carolina Arboretum, Story and Song Center for Arts and Culture, the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site, Kanuga Conference Center, the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNC-Asheville, and many other places. She has also served as a featured reader, speaker, and moderator for literary events at public libraries, bookstores, writing programs, and other venues across the country. For speaking engagements, she is represented by the All American Speakers Bureau.

An Appalachian native, Jennifer lives in a wooded North Carolina hollow with her husband, two cats, four unruly dogs, nine relatively tame dairy goats, and an ever-changing number of chickens.

The Long Version

Jennifer McGaha is a writing teacher, speaker, and the award-winning author of Flat Broke with Two Goats (Sourcebooks, 2018), Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost on the Trail and Write Your Way Out (Trinity University Press, 2023), and The Joy Document: Creating A Midlife of Surprise and Delight (Broadleaf, 2024). In addition, from 2014-2017, she wrote over a dozen humorous articles for The Huffington Post. Over the course of her career, she has also  published over sixty articles, essays, memoirs, micro-essays, and hybrid pieces in magazines and journals such as Image, Still, Barrelhouse, The New Pioneer, Crab Creek, River Teeth, Passengers, PANK, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Baltimore Fishbowl, Back Home Magazine, Mountain Xpress, Smoky Mountain Living Magazine, Passengers Journal, Crab Creek Review, New Pioneer Magazine, Deep South Magazine, Appalachian Heritage, Brevity, The Newer York, Blue Ride Country Magazine, The Brooklyner, Wilderness House Literary Review, North Carolina Literary Review, and many others. Jennifer is also a skilled public speaker who has served as a featured reader, speaker, and moderator for events at public libraries, bookstores, writing programs, and universities across the country. For speaking engagements, she is represented by the All American Speakers Bureau.

Jennifer’s debut memoir (Flat Broke with Two Goats) sold over 26,677 copies and Kirkus Reviews dubbed it a “…determinedly upbeat memoir,” and Library Journal praised it as “an enjoyable back-to-the-land memoir.” In 2018, it won the Overdrive Library award for humor—beating out Paula Poundstone’s memoir that year—and was shown on the set of Modern Love, an Amazon Prime original, starring Anne Hathaway. It was also a featured read at Barnes and Noble and was displayed in the front of stores across the country. Publishers Weekly called McGaha’s second book (Bushwhacking), “gutsy, entertaining, and heartening” and added that “McGaha’s dispatches guide and inspire.” Library Journal named her latest book, The Joy Document, one of the top titles of the season and offered the following praise: “With authenticity, McGaha shares her daily life and the joy she finds in it. This title will inspire readers to pause with a new sense of awareness that every moment can provide an opportunity for self-discovery and gratitude when approached with openness and loyalty.” Publishers Weekly said, “McGaha’s lyrical prose lends depth to life’s seemingly forgettable moments,” and AARP Magazine listed The Joy Document among the top thirty-seven reads of the season and described it as a book about “finding beauty and joy in the world at a time in life when we’re ripe for renewal and growth.”

Jennifer has done extensive press to promote her books and has been featured on radios shows like WordPlay in Asheville (103.3 FM). In addition, The Laurel of Asheville, Mountain Xpress, Smoky Mountain Living, the Asheville Citizen, and The Wall Street Journal have all featured articles about her work, and C-SPAN covered her discussion of Flat Broke with Two Goats at the Rose Glen Literary Festival in Tennessee. She has also been a guest on numerous podcasts, including Professional Book Nerds, Listen & Be Heard, and ChatChat with Claudia Cragg, and her books have been discussed on literary podcasts like Beer by the Books, Clermont County Public Library’s Podcast, and Listen & Be Heard. She has also moderated discussions for sold-out events welcomingsuch celebrated authors as Lee Smith, author of Fair and Tender Ladies, and Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish, and she has greeted fans and signed books at stores like Barnes and Noble, Malaprop’s, City Lights, Page 158 Books, Scuppernong Books, Main Street Books, Bookshelf, Blue Ridge Books, Flyleaf Books, M. Judson Booksellers, and Story and Song Bookstore and Bistro, among others. In 2018, she was a featured speaker at the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival, and she has twice been the featured reader at the Wilma Dykeman Legacy reading series in Asheville. She has also participated in two different speed dating with books events—at the 2019 Lit Fest Moveable Feast at Page 158 in Wake Forest and at the 2023 Bookmarks Festival of Books and Authors in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This spring, she will speak during National Library Week at Transylvania County Library in Brevard, at the Appalachian Studies Conference in Cookeville, Tennessee, and at the North Carolina Writers Network Conference in Asheville.

In addition to the Overdrive award, Jennifer’s work has also been nominated for several other awards. In 2024, Bushwacking was a named a finalist for The Thomas Wolfe Memorial Prize. Her essay, “How to Host a New-Age-y Wake,” earned a Best of the Net nomination (2022), and her memoir “Leanin’ Back” (2010) received a Pushcart Prize nomination. Jennifer has also served as a judge for various writing contests including the North Carolina Writers’ Network’s Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, East Tennessee State University’s The Mockingbird Creative Nonfiction Award, and the Lois C. Bruner’s Creative Nonfiction Award. At UNC-Asheville, she was a recipient of the Mills Fund Grant (2022), the University Teaching Center Grant (2023), and the First-Year Writing Instructor Award (2019). She is a member of The North Carolina Writers’ Network.

Jennifer has taught English at private high schools, community colleges, private colleges, and large universities, most recently at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, where she taught poetry, fiction, literature, first-year writing, and creative nonfiction and helped plan, organize, and host events for visiting authors of regional and national acclaim. Jennifer is also the former coordinator of UNC-Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program, where she still regularly teaches. In addition, Jennifer has led writing workshops through other venues such as Hugo House, Flatiron Writers Room, the North Carolina Arboretum, Story and Song Center for Arts and Culture at Amelia Island, the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site, and many other places. Jennifer holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.