On the advice of their friend and NPR financial journalist Mary Childs, Jessie Gaynor and her husband visited Richmond for the first time four years ago. They were hooked.
“We did not have strong ties anywhere, so we came to visit and we ended up really loving it,” says Gaynor, who was living in Brooklyn at the time.
Gaynor and her husband were contemplating having a second child, but it didn’t seem financially feasible in New York City. A year after visiting Richmond for the first time they bought a house in Byrd Park and made the move.
A novelist and senior editor for website Literary Hub, Gaynor says she’s been pleased with how much Richmonders support the creative endeavors of others.
“It’s a place where it feels like it’s very possible to do the things that you want to do,” she says. “I’ve found a lot of people here who have been really welcoming.”
One such endeavor is Author RVA, a book talk series that brings nationally renowned authors to the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University to discuss their craft. The series, which recently hosted novelist Gary Shteyngart, was founded by Gaynor, Childs, and Chioke I’anson, NPR’s underwriting voice and the VPM+ICA Community Media Center’s director of community media.
A native of the Chicago suburbs, Gaynor holds a bachelor’s from Columbia in history and creative writing and a master’s in poetry from the University of Iowa. She previously worked as an assistant to “The Hours” author Michael Cunningham, an executive editor for SparkNotes, and an editor at Buzzfeed before joining the staff at Literary Hub seven years ago.
Her first novel, 2023’s “The Glow,” is a satire on the wellness industry and the ways that people try to fill in the gaps of a poor health care system and the lack of a strong framework of beliefs.
Gaynor’s upcoming novel, set for a 2027 release, is another dark comedy titled “I Can Tell It Hurts.”
The novel “is about a young woman who moves to an unnamed small city that is definitely Richmond and befriends another woman with kids,” she says. “It’s about navigating economic inequality in friendships as well as trying to create a village for yourself.”
As for Author RVA, Gaynor wants it to pull in heavy-hitting writers of all types.
“I hope that we become a regular stop for every author touring,” she says. “I want to spread the gospel of Richmond.”
