Priscilla Hodgkins's Biography

Priscilla Hodgkins took up writing a bit late, sometime in her early-forties.  Before this she worked as a social worker, television commercial producer, medical secretary, and computer systems consultant. She gave herself a year off to find out if she had what it takes to write a few good short stories, but the habit of going to work five-days a week was not easy to break. She took a part-time job at Bennington College as the assistant to the assistant to the Dean of Faculty and a year later had a full time job as assistant to the Director of Bennington’s Summer Writing Workshops and for the next 14 years she was the Associate Director of the low-residency graduate writing program at Bennington College.

While at Bennington she earned an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature and along the way wrote and published short stories, essays, and a dozen book reviews. Priscilla grew up New Castle, NH, an island town of about 800 people, where everyone knows everyone else and their dogs. After graduating from the University of New Hampshire she moved to New York City in 1968, to San Francisco in 1971 and to Bennington Vermont in 1991.

In 2007 she returned to her home town of New Castle. PUBLICATIONS Fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Agni, Creative Nonfiction and Confrontation. The essay, “Einstein Didn’t Dream of My Mother,” was recognized in Best American Essays and the story, “Bread and War,” was nominated for a Pushcart Press.

Book Reviews: The Men in My Country by Marylin Abildskov; Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction - Volume 8, Number 1, Spring 2006 Campus Sexpot: A Memoir by David Carkeet; Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction - Volume 8, Number 2, Fall 2006 Cherry by Mary Carr; Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction -Volume 3, Issue 2, Fall 2001 Death in Slow Motion by Eleanor Cooney; Hungry Mind Review My Misspent Youth by Meghan Daum; Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction -Volume 4, Issue 1, Spring 2002 Perishable by Dirk Jamison; Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction - Volume 9, Number 1, Spring 2007 Banishing Verona by Margo Livesey; The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 7, 2004 The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd by Mary Rose O'Reilley; Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction - Volume 5, Number 2, Fall 2003 Blessings by Anna Quindlen; The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Sunday, September 29, 2002