Gail Marlene Schwartz is a writer living in Montpelier, Vermont. She is the author of four books: Clementine in Quarantine (Facile a Lire, 2021), The Loudest Bark (Rebel Mountain Press, 2021), My Sister’s Girlfriend (Rebel Mountain Press, 2022), and Falling Through the Night (Demeter Press, forthcoming 2024). She is co-editor of a collection of essays about queer moms parenting sons, forthcoming from Motina Books in 2025.
Gail was a semi-finalist in the Tillie Olsen Short Story Award, Tishman Review, 2017, a finalist in the Malahat Review’s Open Season Award for fiction, 2014, and she received an Honorable Mention from Room Magazine in 2012. Gail’s short pieces have been published in anthologies including How To Expect What You’re Not Expecting, TouchWood Editions, 2013 (“Loving Benjamin”), and Hidden Lives, Brindle and Glass, 2012 (“Crazy: One Woman’s Search for Sanity”). Her writing has also appeared in Room Magazine (online), Witty Bitches, Wilde Magazine, Sunday@6, and Poetica Magazine.
Additionally, Gail was awarded residencies at the Hambidge Center in Georgia, Starry Night Retreat in New Mexico, Madrono Ranch in Texas, and Soaring Gardens in Pennsylvania. She received her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts (writing and performance) from Goddard College and her BA in English from Tufts University.
A writer who seeks and often finds humor, beauty, and meaning in the mundane, Gail writes about parenthood, identity, love, childhood, immigration, social change, health and illness, breaches and repairs, and food (always, food).
Gail sunlights as a copywriter and editor and she also teaches writing at the Community College of Vermont. She is a member of Inked Voices, an online writing community, and a co-editor of Hotch Potch Literature & Art, a new collectively-structured digital journal. Gail lives with her partner, visual artist Erin Needham, and their cranky cat, Miss Brisket.