Jane Marchant
Photo courtesy of Jane Marchant
Bio
Jane Marchant is a writer and photographer whose interdisciplinary narratives have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Guernica, Apogee, Catapult, Columbia Journal, and elsewhere, as well as anthologized in The Beiging of America: Personal Narratives about Being Mixed Race in the Twenty-First Century (2Leaf Press). Her photography and book art have been exhibited with the Center for Book Arts, Kala Art Institute, and ACCI Gallery. She’s received generous support from the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Foundation, Montalvo Arts Center, Tin House’s First Book Residency, Headlands Center for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, and Oak Spring Garden Foundation, among others. Formerly the director of the PEN America Literary Awards Program, Marchant holds a BA and MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, her memoir-in-progress, Jane Marchant’s Encyclopedia of Botany, uses plants from her childhood garden to question ideas of motherhood, racial passing, and interconnected root systems. Her favorite flower is jasmine.
I was at a residency in the woods when a text came through from Amy Stolls saying the National Endowment for the Arts had been trying to reach me. Did I have time for a call? My heart pounded in my ears as I navigated delayed texts, then downed wifi, failed landlines, and a rapid drive into town for signal, knowing my life was changing. When the news was finalized, I sat in my car, terrified, elated, and feeling real and seen as a writer in a way I’d always hoped to be.
A few years ago, I found my middle school autobiography, in which I wrote that my dream was to “be a writer and photographer and maybe even a gardener.” As an adult, I taped it to my fridge, and when I stepped back from a full-time job to write, I knew I was acting as the person I’ve always been. Now, I hike the woods of my childhood, writing a book about the trees, flowers, people, and land I most love. This recognition from the NEA provides necessary financials to nurture my artistic work, but most importantly, it gives validation that I am real, we artists are real, and the writer’s voice is deserving of support.
I am so grateful.