Ann Hillesland, a California native, writes fiction and nonfiction. Her work has been published in many literary journals, including Fourth Genre, Sou’wester, Bayou, The Laurel Review, Ghost Parachute, and SmokeLong Quarterly. It has been selected for the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions, been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and has been presented onstage by Stories On Stage. She is a graduate of the MFA program at Queen’s University of Charlotte.
Ann's short fiction explores love, loss, and family: a marriage proposal at a hockey game, sisters caring for an aging grandmother, brothers struggling over a baseball tryout, a couple coming to terms with a miscarriage. Her flash fiction can sometimes take a more magical realist bent, including a dry cleaner practicing divination from stained clothing, a parrot's perspective of a dentist's office, a talking cat on Christmas Eve, and a goddess knitting Eden. Ann's essays describe her life and her childhood as a one of six children growing up in northern California.
Ann's short fiction explores love, loss, and family: a marriage proposal at a hockey game, sisters caring for an aging grandmother, brothers struggling over a baseball tryout, a couple coming to terms with a miscarriage. Her flash fiction can sometimes take a more magical realist bent, including a dry cleaner practicing divination from stained clothing, a parrot's perspective of a dentist's office, a talking cat on Christmas Eve, and a goddess knitting Eden. Ann's essays describe her life and her childhood as a one of six children growing up in northern California.