Cover reveal! Check out the amazing artwork by A King McCarty for the forthcoming Prom Queens: Celebrating Prom Poems & Stories by Queens Writers anthology from Poets of Queens Press.
Launching May 8! Pre-order your copy here.
Pre-Order Prom Queens
Category: News
WIP Finalist
Lovely beginning of the year energy boost!
My memoir, After After Prom, is a finalist in Unleash Press’s 2025 Fall/Winter WIP Prize.
Thank you, Unleash Press, and congratulations to all the finalists!
Summer College Essay Workshops
Excited to once again be part of The Center for Fiction‘s stellar lineup of summer writing workshops. Online! Open to young writers (13-18) anywhere looking to write personal essays for their college applications and beyond.
Don’t let your students make this mistake!
Click here to read my new Medium piece “That College Essay on A Million Little Things isn’t Getting You into Yale” to avoid the college essay writing mistake featured on the ABC show.
Watch Me on the Calvin Cato Show!
Tonight! 7 pm Eastern (4 pm Pacific), I’m a guest on the Calvin Cato Show is on RushTix where Calvin is interviewing me along with “Dora Milaje alternates” V Lince and Celeste Joseph Jennings!
Just go to https://rushtix.com/events/calvin/ to get a ticket to the livestream.
Last Call for College Essays!
Last call for early action/decision college essays. There are less than 2 weeks until the Nov 1 deadline – contact me today at kjfitzsimmons@gmail.com to schedule your sessions. Happy to answer questions!
Swerve Your Enthusiasm
I was delighted to write about The (late) Great Movie Ride for Swerve Your Enthusiasm on HILOBROW.
Curated by the amazing Adam McGovern my entry is just one in “a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite unfinished masterworks, legendary obscurities and cherished almost-weres.”
Happy reading!
Corona Chronicle Winner
NEWS: Honored to announce that I was named the second-place winner of The Corona Chronicle Essay Contest and will have my essay published in the forthcoming anthology from Ellipsis Rare Books.
50% of all proceeds from submissions to this charitable, community history writing project, collecting the unique perspectives of New Yorkers living through an uncertain period in the City’s history will be donated to the Food Bank For New York City.
Ophelia at 30
The Palm Circle Press Short Story Anthology, which includes my piece, “Ophelia at 30,” as well as awesome work by a number of talented writers is officially available in ebook and paperback. Click here to grab yourself a copy.
I’m thrilled to have my story included in this diverse collection. Here’s a few words from the foreword:
I’m so incredibly proud of this anthology. I’m proudest of how the diversity in these stories abstractly synchs with their similarities. There’s an odd alchemy at work. There’s a touching love poem written by a 105-year-old woman. There’s a story about a woman murdering her husband to escape his abuse. There’s even a story about alien abduction…
Lee Anderson, Palm Circle Press
News! Corona Chronicle Semi-Finalist
The 21 essays selected from our entries demonstrated a depth of thought and engagement with their subject matter and details that we felt best captured the experiences and questions of New Yorkers over the last year.
Ellipses Rare Books
Honored to share that I have been selected as a semi-finalist in The Corona Chronicle Essay Contest from Ellipsis Rare Books in support of the Food Bank for New York City – the provider of 80 million free meals per year for hungry and homeless New Yorkers.