Penny Guisinger
SHE | HER | HERS
- Stonecoast MFA Faculty
Education
MFA, Creative Writing; Stonecoast MFA, University of Southern Maine
MA, Public Policy and Management; Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine
BA, English Writing Arts; State University of New York, College at Oswego
Penny Guisinger is the author of two memoirs, Shift: A Memoir of Identity and Other Illusions (Winner of the 2025 Maine Literary Award for nonfiction and the John C. Cole Award for Maine-themed nonfiction) from University of Nebraska Press and Postcards from Here from Vine Leaves Press. Her essay Coming Out was a finalist for the 2016 Michael Steinberg Prize. Her work has appeared in Fourth Genre, River Teeth, Guernica, Solstice Literary Magazine, TheRumpus, and others. Pushcart-nominated, a four-time Maine Literary Award winner, and a three-time notable in Best American Essays, she is a co-director of Iota Short Forms and a former assistant editor at Brevity. Penny is a graduate of the Stonecoast MFA Program. She lives near Lubec with her wife, college-aged kids, and a slowly evolving number of dogs.
Selected Publications
Shift: A Memoir of Identity and Other Illusions
Postcards from Here
Education
MFA, Creative Writing; Stonecoast MFA, University of Southern Maine
MA, Public Policy and Management; Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine
BA, English Writing Arts; State University of New York, College at Oswego