Jennifer Jussel PhD Student - Creative Writing

Jennifer Jussel is a PhD student studying English with a concentration in creative writing at Texas Tech University. She is also a Graduate Part-Time Instructor in the English department teaching creative writing, literature, and first-year writing. She serves as a Managing Editor for Iron Horse Literary Review and a member of the Department of English First-Year Writing Committee.

Jennifer's research and writing interests surround chronically ill and disabled narratives in creative nonfiction. She is now at work on her second book about diabetes, productivity culture, and rewriting the history of sweetness without shame. Her first book, Mellitus: Essays on Up/Rooting, won the Howling Bird Press Nonfiction Prize and is forthcoming from Howling Bird Press in October 2026. Her other creative work has been supported by the McCormack Writing Center and the Vermont Studio Center and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net award. You can find more of her work at jennifergjussel.wixsite.com/jenniferjussel. 

Prior Degrees

MFA in Creative Writing, Eastern Washington University, 2021

Bachelor of Arts in English, Trinity University, 2019 

Recent Creative Publications 

Mellitus: Essays on Up/Rooting, Howling Bird Press, forthcoming October 2026.

"I Enjoy Eating Everything." Spectrum Magazine, vol. 69, forthcoming June 2026.

"To the Grackle Eating Trash at the First Gas Station Entering Texas." The Great Texas Poetry Project, May 2026. Selected by Texas Poet Laureates Octavio Quintanilla and Kevin Prufer.

"Diabetes mellitus." Radar Poetry, vol 44., 2026.

"Keepsakes." Booth, vol. 20, 2025, pp. 174-188.

"This One Small Thing." Cleaver, vol. 44, 2023.

"The Stranger." The Santa Clara Review, vol. 110, no. 2, 2023, pp. 91 – 97. Nominated for 2024 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Award.

"Baby Teeth." Blood Orange Review, vol. 14, no. 1, 2022.  

Scholarly Publications and Conference Presentations

"Tutorial for the End of the World: Post-Apocalyptic Video Game Protagonists as Disabled Models for Adaptability." Anglica: An International Journal of English Studies, Special Thematic Issue: Apocalypse as Utopia: Hopeful Visions of Apocalypses in Literature, Media, and Culture, forthcoming 2027.

"No Agency Without Crip Futurity: Restoration vs. Adaptation in the Quick Time Events of The Last of Us Part II." Presented at The Humanities Center at Texas Tech Conference, Lubbock, TX, April 2026.

"Tutorial for the End of the World: Post-Apocalyptic Video Game Protagonists as Disabled Models for Adaptability." Presented at the Southwest Popular and American Culture Association, Albuquerque, NM; February 2025. Winner of 2025 Heldrich Dvorak Travel Award.

"A Right to Choose, a Right to Know the Options: Promoting Translingual Policy in the English Composition Classroom and Throughout the University." Presented at the Eastern Washington University Student Research Symposium, Cheney, WA; June 2020.