Tara Ison
Photo by Michael Powers
Bio
Tara Ison is the author of three novels: A Child out of Alcatraz, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; The List; and Rockaway. She also has written the short story collection Ball and the essay collection Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies, a PEN Southwest Book Award winner for Creative Nonfiction. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Salon, Electric Literature, the Kenyon Review, the Rumpus, Nerve, Black Clock, TriQuarterly, the Mississippi Review, the Santa Monica Review, O, the Oprah Magazine, and numerous anthologies. She is also co-writer of the cult film Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead. She is the recipient of grants, fellowships, and residencies from the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, the International Retreat for Writers at Hawthornden Castle, Scotland, the Thurber House, and the California Arts Council. She is currently professor of fiction in Arizona State University’s Creative Writing Program.
The work is its own reward. As artists, we all know this. We tell ourselves this, remind ourselves of this, often. I do, or I try to, often.
And yet….
When your faith—in the work, in the reason we do the work, in yourself—feels rickety, a termite-ravaged beam, and you’re teetering, fear-frozen, trying to keep a tight hold on that faith, unslick your grip and quell disquieting doubts, well, someone else's faith in you is an extraordinary and much-appreciated thing.
I am working on a new collection of short stories, some in experimental form, some drawing on historical or scientific sources and models; my application included both a published and an unpublished story from this collection, and as I work to push myself forward into as-yet-unfamiliar risks, I am deeply grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts for this motivating, humbling, affirming, and bolstering support.