Kristen J. Tsetsi — Novelist & Essayist

Kristen J. Tsetsi standing on the Cliffs of Moher

Kristen Tsetsi has been an adjunct English professor, an instructor of expository- , play-, and screenwriting, a town news reporter/feature writer/columnist, a cab driver, someone’s worst assistant ever, and editor of the literary journal American Fiction (New Rivers Press). She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University Moorhead.

The post-Roe v. Wade The Age of the Child is her latest novel. Called “provocative” by The Baby Matrix author Laura Carroll and “scathing social commentary” by a Goodreads reviewer, The Age of the Child was the focus of an episode of NPR’s “The Colin McEnroe Show” and, according to reviewer J. S. Crail, promises to “rile up your book clubs.” (“Perfect for book clubs,” agrees Casualties author Elizabeth Marro.)

Her first novel, the independently released Pretty Much True (originally Homefront), was included in Saint Joseph’s University professor Dr. Owen W. Gilman, Jr.’s “American War Literature and Film: Vietnam to Now” 2012 course curriculum and is one of the contemporary works studied in Gilman’s The Hell of War Comes Home: Imaginative Texts from the Conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, a wide-ranging collection that includes creative nonfiction and journalism, film, poetry, and fiction.

Kristen’s second novel, The Year of Dan Palace (originally published under the pen name Chris Jane), has been called “stunningly good” by Indie Bookworm and “impossible to put down” by Pop Culture Zoo. One Amazon reviewer expressed impressive hatred of it.

Her short fiction has won the Storyglossia Fiction Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her short story collection Carol’s Aquarium, which includes prize- and award-winning stories as well as some that were previously unpublished, is available here.

Kristen contributed regularly to the writers’ and publishers’ resource website JaneFriedman.com, primarily with a series of interviews with writers and others in the publishing industry. She's currently working on a new novel.

More information (features, interviews, appearances) here.

Kristen on Medium and Substack.
“Why Chris Jane?” answered at Read Her Like an Open Book.

Currently working on a new book. It's going to be a bestseller. You said wait and see. I am just kidding about that actually. We will see. I think we can move on now.

Selected Works

The Age of the Child

A repeal of Roe v. Wade has unanticipated consequences that take a surprising turn from one generation to the next.

“Kris Tsetsi’s The Age of the Child illuminates the hypocrisies of our time without flinching. It’s good stuff. Read it.” – Alan Davis, Fulbright recipient and author of (among others) So Bravely Vegetative (Winner of Prize Americana for Fiction) and the forthcoming Clouds are the Mountains of the World

“This book is timely. It presents a dark foreign world, but one that may not be unexpected the way things are going.” – Philip B. Persinger, author of Tools of the Trade and Do the Math

“Something interesting and endlessly thought-provoking that The Age of the Child captures are the multiple sides of pregnancy – wanting to be pregnant, not wanting to be pregnant, and what right the government has in controlling pregnancy. This isn’t the first piece of dystopian fiction to consider these questions. The Handmaid’s Tale and The Farm, to name a couple, have opened the dystopian genre to questions about reproduction; however, The Age of the Child is one of the first I’ve read to really consider the issue of reproductive rights and attitudes so deeply.” – Rebecca Maye Holiday, author of The Beaches

Listen to the discussion on NPR’s “The Colin McEnroe Show.”

Signed copies: VJ Books and Curiosity Store

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Pretty Much True

“I spent years reporting from military bases where young families and lovers were being separated by the decisions of old men. I had never had a better understanding of the agony of military separation until I read Kristen Tsetsi’s haunting and lyrical debut novel.” – James C. Moore, New York Times best-selling author of Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential and Give Back the Light: A Doctor’s Relentless Struggle to End Blindness

“Tsetsi’s talents shine throughout the novel, and she reveals herself to be the rare sort of writer who can satisfy both emotionally and intellectually. … Its intelligent, honest treatment of war is not the only thing that Pretty Much True has going for it. In many ways, it is an example of the kind of highbrow style that makes small presses so essential to the continued health of our literary landscape.” – Small Press Reviews

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The Year of Dan Palace

“From the powerful emotion of the break-up of Dan and Nina’s relationship in the opening pages to the completely unexpected ending, this book really is a stunning must-read.” — Indie Bookworm Reviews

“The Year of Dan Palace is honest, original, and impossible to put down. With a wholly distinctive narrative voice, Kristen Tsetsi is a 21st Century Bukowski.” — Joseph Dilworth Jr., Pop Culture Zoo

* This novel, originally published under the pen name Chris Jane, has been re-released under the author’s real name. The audio version is still a Chris Jane title.

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All works →