
Jen Fawkes
Writer, Simulacrum, Crone
DAUGHTERS OF CHAOS: a Novel
coming July 9, 2024
***To order a signed copy from Jen's local independent bookstore, WordsWorth Books in Little Rock, AR, click above!

AN EPIC NOVEL ABOUT CIVIL WAR–ERA NASHVILLE’S “PUBLIC WOMEN,” AN AGE-OLD SECRET SOCETY, AND THE EARTH-SHAKING POWER OF THE FEMALE
In 1862, after a tragedy at home, 22-year-old Sylvie Swift parts ways with her brother to trace the origins of an enigmatic playscript that’s landed on their door-step. It leads her to Nashville, bustling with soldiers, saboteurs, partisans, powerful men––and powerful women.
Sylvie translates the playscript by day, but at night, she acts as a Union spy. Both endeavors acquaint her with a sisterhood whose members—including Hannah, a fiery revolutionary to whom Sylvie is increasingly drawn—possess potentially monstrous powers. Sylvie soon becomes entangled in the Cult of Chaos, a feminist society steadfast in its ancient mission to eradicate the violence of men.
Inspired by Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and the true story of Nashville’s attempt to exile its prostitutes during the Civil War, Daughters of Chaos weaves together “found” texts, fabulism, and queer themes to question familiar notions of history and family, warfare and power.
“In her elemental inventiveness, Jen Fawkes is descended from the Angela Carter of Wise Children and The Bloody Chamber but is also up to something exhilaratingly new. Daughters of Chaos is joyful and bold, populated so richly with twins and prostitutes and mythical creatures and historical figures that in the great thrill of watching its tapestry unfurl, the enormity and seriousness of the questions Fawkes is asking snuck up on me. This novel is interested in nothing less than the forces of chaos and order and the question of where lies threat and where salvation. Ambitious, vast, expertly crafted—an extraordinary achievement.”
—Clare Beams, author of The Illness Lesson

ABOUT JEN
Jen Fawkes is the author of Mannequin and Wife (LSU Press), a 2020 Shirley Jackson Award Nominee, winner of the 2023 Phillip H. McMath Post-Publication Book Award, and Foreword INDIES gold medalist. Her collection Tales the Devil Told Me (Press 53) was a Foreword INDIES silver medalist, one of Largehearted Boy’s Favorite Collections of 2021, and a finalist for the 2022 World Fantasy Award for Single-Author Story Collection.
Locus has called Jen’s work “witty and dark, extravagant and savage,” and according to Library Journal, she is “a writer to watch.” Her short fiction has won numerous awards, including the 2021 Porter Fund Literary Prize, and has appeared in One Story, Lit Hub, The Iowa Review, Crazyhorse, Best Small Fictions, and many others. A two-time finalist for the Calvino Prize for fabulist fiction, Jen lives in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her debut novel, Daughters of Chaos, is coming in July 2024 from Abrams Books.

ONLINE PUBLICATIONS
SHORT FICTION
"Sometimes, They Kill Each Other" (excerpt)
Lit Hub
Sept 2020
The Rumpus
August 2020
“We Can Learn from the Sawhorse”
Atticus Review
fall 2019
storySouth
fall 2019
Pidgeonholes
fall 2019
Jellyfish Review
fall 2019
SFWP Quarterly
summer 2019
Sequestrum
spring 2018
Jersey Devil Press
fall 2017
Joyland
spring 2015
Amazon’s Day One
fall 2014
]
One Story
winter 2013/14
Salamander
winter 2013/14
The Iowa Review
fall 2013
Michigan Quarterly Review
winter 2013
“Demerol, Demerol, Benzedrine, Schnaps”
The Massachusetts Review
fall 2012
aa
"Contributor Spotlight: Jen Fawkes"
Sequestrum
Spring 2018
Interview with Jen Fawkes
Speaking of Marvels
October 2020
Mini-Interview with Jen Fawkes
tommydeanwriter
August 2020
Interview with Jen Fawkes
Flash Monsters!!!
September 2020
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
November 2020
NONFICTION
Research Notes: How to Write Mannequin and Wife"
Necessary Fiction
March 2021
"Jen Fawkes's Playlist for Mannequin and Wife"
Largehearted Boy
November 2020
"What to Read When You Suspect That Time Is Not a Line"
The Rumpus
August 2020
Miracle Monocle
spring 2017
INTERVIEWS
BOOK REVIEWS
Machines of Another Era by Bess Winter
Necessary Fiction
January 2021
Necessary Fiction
May 2021
"Dangerous Women: a Conversation
with Jen Fawkes"
VIDA Review
September 2020
"Release the Book: Jen Fawkes"
Fear No Lit
October 2020
"Acknowledging the Power of the Margins: Jen Fawkes on Mannequin and Wife"
Southern Review of Books
September 2020
"Strangeness in the Proportion: a Q & A with Jen Fawkes"
Arkansas Times
October 2020
CONTACT
For rights requests, please contact my agency:
Mark Gottlieb
Vice President and Literary Agent
Trident Media Group
mgottlieb@tridentmediagroup.com
Mailing address:
Mark Gottlieb
Vice President and Literary Agent
Trident Media Group
355 Lexington Avenue, Floor 12
New York, NY 10017
(212) 333-1506