Jayne Pupek was an American poet and fiction writer. She wrote and published two collections of poetry: The Livelihood of Crows (Mayapple Press

Mayapple Press

Mayapple Press is a small literary press started by poet and translator Judith Kerman in 1978. After a hiatus between 1982 and 1992, it became active again, publishing generally one to three titles a year until 2004, when the press became more active. For the past several years, Mayapple Press has...

, 2010) and Forms of Intercession (Mayapple Press, 2008), and one novel, Tomato Girl (Algonquin, 2008), which was called a "wrenching, stunning, and pitch-perfect novel that captures the best of Southern literature's finest storytelling colors" by Library Journal

Library Journal

Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...

 and "an absorbing, unsettling debut" by Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...

. Writing for the Courier-Journal, critic L. Elisabeth Beattie notes: "Jayne Pupek's first novel puts her among the ranks of Southern masters like McCullers

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers was an American writer. She wrote novels, short stories, and two plays, as well as essays and some poetry. Her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South...

 and O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor

Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries...

" Pupek's work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize

Pushcart Prize

The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....

. Tomato Girl was also published as an audio book by Recorded Books as part of their Southern Voices Audio Imprint.

Books

• The Livelihood of Crows (Mayapple Press, 2010) ISBN 978-0-932412-94-2
• Forms of Intercession (Mayapple Press, 2008) ISBN 978-0-932412-59-1
• Tomato Girl (Algonquin, 2008) ISBN 978-1-56512-472-1

Poems and chapbooks

• “New Constellations” – A Chapbook
• “Local Girls” – A Chapbook
• Primitive (Pudding House Press, 2004)
• True Crimes and Other Poems
• Blue Velvet
• Guerra Sucia (The Dirty War)
• Contagion
• Love Note, Date Unknown
• Doll poems
• Zombie Sex
• Missing Girl, 1986
• Learning to Paint at Age 45
• The Zombie Inside a Strip Club
• Lazarus and Red Rulers
• S. Freud and the Ants
• Dreams
• Elegy for Leo
• Before She Dusts
• "Distance" and "An Appearance"
• Contemplation
• "The Last Days," "The Rainy Season," and "Target Practice"
• Lives in Decline
• Dinner Party
• Speculation
• Alaska
• Letter to Eli
• Postage Stamps
• Inside the Ward
• "Protocol" and "Life with Frederic on Cassatt Street"
• Census of Seagulls
• Lunar Eclipse in Scorpio
• Objet Trouvé
• "OCD Patient Narrates the Picnic", "Nights in Apt. 14", "Hotel Prayer"
• "Armand" and "Applicants to the Garden of Eternal (more or less) Rest"
• Found Coins
• 3274 Hickory Lane
• Wintering in Detroit, 2024
• Eviction
• Scheherazade
• "Culled Space" and "Gardenias"

Work included in anthologies

• "Tomboy" (Just Like a Girl:A Manifesta, GirlChild Press) ISBN 978-0-9779372-1-9
• "Some Days" (Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer’s Disease, Kent State University Press) ISBN 978-1-60635-007-2
• "The Awakening" (Afternoon Delight: Erotica for Couples, Cleis Press) ISBN 978-1-57344-341-8
• "In a Station of the Metro" (Sixty Stories of Sudden Sex, Cleis Press) ISBN 978-1-57344-331-9
• "20 Reason I'm Not Writing Today" and "The Xerox Girls" (Ectoplasmic Necropolis, Blood Pudding Press) (chapbook)

Reviews

• Publisher's Weekly
• Library Journal
• Kirkus Reviews
• The Feminist Review
• Courier-Journal
• galatea resurrects #12 (a poetry engagement)
• Pedestal Magazine
• "Reality, not sympathy" by Doris E. Pavlichek, Internet Review of Books
• "Dysfunction in Abundance" by Michael Mewshaw, Internet Review of Books

Awards and honors

• "Letter to Eli," nominated for the Pushcart Prize
• "Ghost Child", nominated for Best of the Web 2007
• "Tomato Girl," listed on OVERBOOKED'S hotlist for New and Notable Fiction for 2008

Author interviews

• We Dream Colors: An Interview with Jayne Pupek (September-December 2008)
• A Conversation with Jayne Pupek (Feb 1, 2009)
• An Interview with First Time Novelist Jayne Pupek (August 18, 2008)