About

Carol Claassen has spent her whole life bouncing between coasts and consequently dreads the question, “Where are you from?” She identifies as a devoted neighborhood walker, amateur iPhone photographer, passionate microwave chef, cat owner who prefers dogs, mediocre yet enthusiastic poet, and spoiler of serious conversations. She’s also gay. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from CSU-Fresno and a job that requires math skills. She mainly writes memoir but deeply admires fiction writers who don’t feel the need to write about their dead dads all the time. She aspires to write comedy.

Carol’s prose has been noted in The Best American Essays, nominated for a Pushcart Prize, listed as a finalist for Best of the Net, awarded The Forge Flash Nonfiction Competition Prize, and is published in The Pinch, The Normal School, Fourth Genre, The Forge Literary Magazine, Pidgeonholes, SAND Journal, and 3Elements Review.