Lyzette Wanzer, MFA

Lyzette Wanzer is a San Francisco writer, editor, and writing workshop instructor. She received her MFA in Fiction from Mills College. A flash fiction connoisseur and essay aficionado, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Natural Bridge, The Los Angeles Review, Callaloo, Tampa Review, The MacGuffin, Ampersand Review, Journal of Advanced Development, Fourteen Hills, Journal of Experimental Fiction, Pleiades, Flashquake, Glossalia Flash Fiction, Potomac Review, International Journal on Literature and Theory, Fringe Magazine, Guernica Magazine, and many others. She is a contributor to The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays (Wyatt-MacKenzie), Civil Liberties United: Diverse Voices from the San Francisco Bay Area (Pease Press), and 642 Tiny Things to Write About (Chronicle Books). Her articles have appeared in Essay Daily, The Naked Truth, and the San Francisco University High School Journal. Lyzette is the current judge of the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition's Intercultural Essay category.

Lyzette has been invited to present her work and/or panels at conferences across the country, including the American and Popular Culture Association, Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP), College English Association (CEA), Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture Since 1900, Litquake Festival, San Francisco Writers Conference, and others.

Lyzette is a member of the National Writers' Union, where she serves on the Northern California Chapter's Steering Committee, The Authors Guild, and The Writers' Grotto nonprofit organization. She has also served on the Grotto's fellowship adjudication panel. Lyzette has been awarded writing residencies at Blue Mountain Center (NY), Kimmel Harding Center for the Arts (NE), Playa Summer Lake (OR), Horned Dorset Colony (NY), Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow (AR), Headlands Center for the Arts (CA), and The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada. She is the recipient of an Investing in Artists grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, two Individual Artist Commission grants from San Francisco Arts Commission, and two Professional Development Grants from the Creative Capacity Fund. Her newest project is an essay anthology called Trauma, Tresses, & Truth: Untangling Our Hair Through Personal Narrative. She is also working on Professionalize Your Creative Writing Practice: Building A Career As A Literary Artist, a professional development workbook for creative writers.

Media

Sviatoslavsky, Lydia. "Bay Area Writers Share How Pandemic and Protests Have Affected Their Urge to Write." Bay City News [San Francisco Bay Area, CA], 19 Aug. 2020

Sullivan, Denise. "The Writers Grotto Carves out New Paths to Survive." San Francisco Chronicle [San Francisco, CA], 1 June 2020

Bossiere, Zoë, and Erica Trabold. "In Praise of Ambiguity: The Lyric Essay in 2019." Essay Daily, 4 Mar. 2019

Williams, September. "September Williams MD Novel 'Chasing Mercury' Previews at LitCrawl San Francisco 2016." PR Newswire [San Francisco, CA], 29 June 2018

Karp, Evan. "Headlands Center for the Arts: Kate Folk, Susan Gevirtz + Lizette Wanzer." Litseen, Quiet Lightning, 26 Aug. 2016

Samuelson, Rebecca. "Lyzette Wanzer on Having a Thick Skin." SF Weekly/Litseen [San Francisco, CA], 19 May 2016

Reinbold, Craig. "The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays." Terrain.Org, 7 July 2012

My Residencies

Arkansas

Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow

California

Headlands Center for the Arts

Canada

Banff Centre for the Arts

Indiana

PlySpace