Paris and Granada Instructor Jessica Reidy sometimes gets requests for interviews from writers who are working on pieces featuring a Romani (Gypsy) character.  Jessica is a writer of mixed-Romani heritage and also works her family trades: dancing, energy healing, and fortune telling, and she always declines these kinds of interviews centered on divulging her life story for another person’s creative work.  In her Missouri Review essay, “Esmeralda Declines an Interview” she explains why she finds these interview requests problematic and tackles the issue of ethnic stereotypes.

Check out Jessica’s upcoming classes on the CWW summer writing retreats, Lorca’s Gypsies: Blood of the Archetype in Granada, Spain and Anaïs Nin & the Art of Journaling in Paris, France.  Admissions are rolling apply at: cww.submittable.com

Jessica Reidy attended Florida State University for her MFA in Fiction and holds a B.A. from Hollins University.  Her work is Pushcart-nominated and has appeared in Narrative Magazine as Short Story of the Week, The Los Angeles Review, Arsenic Lobster, and other journals. She’s a staff-writer and the Outreach Editor for Quail Bell Magazine, Managing Editor for VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts, Art Editor for The Southeast Review, and Instructor for the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop retreats.  She is a freelance writer and editor, a yoga instructor, and also works her Romani (Gypsy) family trades, fortune telling, energy healing, and dancing.  Jessica is currently writing her first novel set in post-WWII Paris about Coco Charbonneau, the half-Romani burlesque dancer and fortune teller of Zenith Circus, who becomes a Nazi hunter.  Visit her online at www.jessicareidy.com.