Eleanor Henderson grew up in Florida and has taught in the Department of Writing since 2010. Her latest book is the memoir Everything I Have Is Yours: A Marriage (Flatiron, 2021), which was selected for the New York Times Group Text Book Club and named a New York Times Notable Book. She is also the author of the novels The Twelve-Mile Straight (Ecco, 2017) and Ten Thousand Saints (Ecco, 2011), which was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2011 by The New York Times, was a finalist for the Award for First Fiction from The Los Angeles Times, and was adapted into a movie starring Ethan Hawke.
Eleanor’s stories and essays have appeared in publications including Agni, Ninth Letter, LitHub, Salon, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, All Things Considered, Poets & Writers, The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Best American Short Stories, and Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games. With the novelist Anna Solomon she is also co-editor of Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers (FSG, 2014). A 2024 NYFA Fellow in Fiction, she serves on the executive board of Saoirse Pastures, a sanctuary for rescued farmed animals.
On sabbatical Fall 2025.
Degrees
- M.F.A. Fiction, University of Virginia, 2005
- B.A. American Literature/Creative Writing, Middlebury College, 2001
Selected Publications
Books
- Everything I Have Is Yours: A Marriage, a memoir, Flatiron Books, 2021
- The Twelve-Mile Straight, a novel, HarperCollins/Ecco, 2017
- Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers, FSG, 2014 (co-editor)
- Ten Thousand Saints, a novel, HarperCollins/Ecco, 2011
Reviews + Essays
- Review of Us Fools by Nora Lange, New York Times Book Review, 2024
- "The Year of No Halloween," Salon.com, 2020
- Review of Daisy Jones and the Six by Tara Jenkins Reid, New York Times Book Review, 2019
- Review of Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, New York Times Book Review, 2017
- Review of Remember Me Like This by Bret Anthony Johnston, New York Times Book Review, 2014
- "I Wasn't Born Yesterday: The Beauty of Backstory," Poets & Writers Magazine, 2013
Selected Awards
- New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Support for Artists Grant, 2025
- New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship in Fiction, 2024
- New York Times Notable Book, 2021
- Robert Ryan Professorship in the Humanities, 2019
- Summer Grants for Faculty Research, Ithaca College, 2019, 2011
- Research Fellowship, Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library at Emory University, 2016
- Faculty Excellence Award, Ithaca College Center for Faculty Excellence, 2011-2012
- Finalist for the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, Los Angeles Times, 2011
- 10 Best Books of the Year, New York Times, 2011
Selected Past Courses
- Vegan Studies (Ithaca Seminar)
- Writing the Other (Senior Seminar)
- Narratives of Mental Illness (Ithaca Seminar)
- Distance + Discourse (Senior Seminar)
- The Art of Time (Senior Seminar)
- Short Stories on the Screen (Ithaca Seminar)
- Editing & Publishing
- Writing Historical Fiction
- Writing the Novella
Appointments
- Chair, Department of Writing, 2020 to 2023
- Robert Ryan Professor in the Humanities, 2019 to 2022
- Founding Co-Director, New Voices Literary Festival, 2013 to 2022
- Founding Director, Ithaca Writers Institute, 2013 to 2015
Website