A young girl sets out to paint a portrait of her sexual identity and her artistic ability. She wants to be loved. And she wants to be a writer. And she wants to be you. She wants to see you in her. She wants a chorus. A huge chorus balanced on bleachers, like the ones on late night public television every December 22-27th. She wants lots of women and a few men in colorful tunics singing different parts of the same song. She wants to build something with you, about her, for them. They can have it. And when they ask you what it is, tell them it's something sturdy. And something powerful. Complete. Like a dresser.
Jessica Anne is a life-long Chicagoan. A graduate of The Chicago Academy for the Arts, North Park University, and Roosevelt University (MFA Creative Writing). Anne is also an alumna of the Chicago Neo-Futurist ensemble (2006-2012). During her tenure at the Neo-Futurists Anne wrote, performed, and directed over three hundred two minute plays for the late night smash, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (30 Plays in 60 Minutes).* Jessica Anne is also the creator, writer, and performer of her one woman show, Mike Mother (co-starring Mike Hamilton, directed by Josh Mathews; a Neo-Futurist production). Anne is the Nonfiction editor of MAKE Literary Magazine, and an artistic associate of MAKE Literary Productions' Lit & Luz Festival. Lit & Luz is a one-of-a-kind series of events featuring renowned authors and visual artists from Chicago and Mexico City in cultural exchange and conversation. Events take place in the fall in Chicago, and in the winter in Mexico City.
Author of A Manual for Nothing (Noemi Press), and Sex With My Family (forthcoming, Long Day Press).
Jess currently teaches in the Liberal Arts department of The School of The Art Institute of Chicago and is a visiting professor at Roosevelt University.
"We always advise each other that the best way to take off a Band-aid is to rip it- just one quick yank. In A Manual for Nothing, Jessica Anne never put the Band-aid on to begin with. Here, the wound is a world: rehearsals in a church basement, cat food, an unwanted touch, your name scraped out of Crayons. Here, the wound holds your gaze. The wound wants to play with you. This manual teaches you how." - Julia Cohen
"Often the second person is distancing and abstract, but in Jessica Anne's a manual (for nothing) it makes an intimate hum: a girl talking to herself, to her beloved, her girls, to you. Like a hive of bees suddenly pivoting from sweet to stabby, Jessica Anne's narrative and metaphor are at once open-hearted and painful, which makes them honest. The bodies here can love, surprise, and be hurt, just like ours." - Mairead Case
"Jessica Anne's A Manual for Nothing is so the book we need (I need) right now. A künstlerroman for the twenty-first century: A Portrait of the Artist as (Jessica Anne). The World According to (Jessica Anne). Remembrance of Lost (Jessica Anne). The Sorrows of Young (Jessica Anne). Look Homeward, (Jessica Anne). Adios, boy artists. With Patti LuPone as a spirit guide, A Manual for Nothing is a künstlerroman for and about girl artists and women artists and performance artists who want to be writer artists. A künstlerroman for all those who know the predatory mentor whose name 'starts with a G-r and ends with an egg' and still kinda-sorta-hafta question what it even means to be a feminist. A künstlerroman for the silent ballerinas with perfect first positions but mute first persons. A Manual for Nothing is a künstlerroman for you, girl." - Kelcey Parker Ervick
