NEW Novel COMING 2025
just announced
headcheese by
jess hagemann
From sexual fetish to the clinical diagnosis of Body Integrity Identity Disorder, Headcheese makes the first cut, peeling back the epidermis to peer inside the minds and hearts of 26 people navigating the topography of flesh.
Winner of a 2019 IPPY Award in Horror!
“Reading Headcheese is like realizing the chainsaw was the hero of Texas Chain Saw Massacre and that nothing brings us closer to our true selves than understanding what we'd cut away. Jess Hagemann does for dismemberment what Ishmael did for whales—revealing the whole world inside the tiniest details.”
—Newsweek
“A provocative and ingeniously assembled novel with enough debauched imagination—and perverse reality—to satisfy even the most morbidly curious reader. If this book was a Google search, you’d read it in incognito mode.”
—Katie Rife, A.V Club
About jess
Jess Hagemann's recent work has appeared in Southwest Review, Castle of Horror: Femme Fatales, and Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga. She has an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School. Her debut novel Headcheese won an IPPY Award in Horror.
other publications
2014
“To Have and to Hold,” NPR Illinois
“Exoskeleton,” under the gum tree
2013
“Crane,” Your Everyday Heroes
“Study of Retinoblastoma Homolog in C. elegans,” Utter Magazine
“The Red Pearl,” Looseleaf Tea
“That Sainted Gash,” Almost Five [Quarterly]
“Veiled,” Doorknobs & BodyPaint
2012
“Things to Save,” Inquiring Mind
“Room for Saltwater,” The Oklahoma Review
“Taboo Blue,” Five [Quarterly]
“On Blasphemy,” Esque Magazine
“Sheer Like Gauze,” Kweli Journal
2011
“On Ecology,” Gambling the Aisle
“Off the Dome: An Interview with Ronaldo V. Wilson,” Bombay Gin
“The Cardigan and the Carnalval,” Fiera Lingue
2010
“MySpace: Begin,” Pank Magazine
“On Breasts and Testicles,” Lethologica
2009
“Static,” “Castro Lauds Elections,” & “To My Fellow Cannibal Christians,” Re:Visions
“Fixtures,” Spires Magazine
in the news
2019
Headcheese wins an IPPY Award in Horror
Jess performs at Something Indecent
Jess gets interviewed on The BodPod
Jess gets interviewed by Morbidly Beautiful
Jess gets interviewed on Retro Movie Geek
Jess gets interviewed on Trick or Treat Radio
Review of Headcheese by Into the Void
2018
Review of Headcheese by Killer Horror Critic
Jess gets interviewed by PopHorror
Review of Headcheese by PopHorror
Daily Dead on Headcheese artwork
Dread Central on Headcheese novel release
Jess gets interviewed on Bizzong!
Review of Headcheese by One-Legged Reviews
Jess gets interviewed on The Corpsepaint Show
Get in touch.
Jess is available for conferences, visiting writers’ weekends, and other speaking engagements.