Diane Simmons

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Diane Simmons is the author of numerous works of award-winning fiction non-fiction, journalism, and criticism. 

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A former newspaper and magazine reporter in Idaho, Washington, and Alaska,  she holds a BA in history, an MA in Creative Writing, and a Ph.D. in English literature. She is Professor Emerita at City University of New York and recently served as a Fulbright Teaching Fellow in the Czech Republic.

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Working on: Just wrapping up Kidnappers: A Love Story, a novel of about 100,000 words, set in the American West during the Great Depression, and against the backdrop of labor radicalism. Based on real characters and events, the story follows three desperate young people —one of them a teenage girl trying to care for a family of twelve—who have been inspired by the Lindbergh kidnapping. They’ve studied the mistakes of previous kidnappers, as well as the crime-stopping claims of the new FBI, which they take to be mostly PR.  Despite the widespread poverty of the Depression, there are still ostentatiously wealthy people; the three just have to find one to grab.

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Recent essays: 

"An Old Portrait in a Dark Closet" is a trip back in time to discover the secrets of my mother's Deep South family. Published in B O D Y, an international literary journal based in Prague.

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"The Big Time" is a personal essay: a cub reporter spends the night in a North Idaho brothel to get the story. Published, online literary non-fiction magazine Hippocampus.

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 “Principles You’re Making a Killing on Them!” runner-up travel-writing contest and published In NOWHERE magazine.  Nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  Translated into Czech and published in Czech literary Magazine, HOST.

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"Nobody Goes to the Gulag Any More"  published in Missouri Review - excerpted in LitHub.​​

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ACTIVISM: 

Maplewood Dems, Activate America, and other progressive groups.  Getting out the vote, and fighting attempts at voter suppression

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New York City climate group Third Act: protesting big bank funding of new fossil fuel projects 

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Chair Non-Fiction Award Committee –  PEN American Center Prison Writing Committee

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