Writing is a dance with place

Hi! I'm Jean Shields Fleming. I write fiction, memoir, personal essay, & poetry, and I'm the founder & editor of Certain Age magazine.

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All the Reasons Why

Three women. One piece of land. Who will control its fate?

All the Reasons Why is a meditation on land, loss, family and possibility. Sitting at the still point between literary and commercial fiction, the novel forges a new way to answer one of the defining struggles of our times: What we do to the earth, we do to ourselves.

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Publications

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Novel:
Air Burial

Publisher's Weekly called Air Burial, my first novel, "soulful and unsentimental." The book explores grief, love, and throwing off the shackles of an old life - only to discover new obligations & commitments.

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Travel Essay:
The Land Where Rhodes Fell

Traveling in Zimbabwe, I had no desire to confront the legacy of Cecil Rhodes. But he had other plans for me, buried as he is in the most sacred heart of the country.

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My Writing Life

Meditation on Seeds & Leaves

Inside us is a garden ready to bloom. But what blossoms depends on the seeds we choose to water. Three Vietnamese nuns explain.

The Last Waltz

Discovering for whom the bell tolls is actually kind of literal.

Kind Words

Bestselling author Jim Shepard had some good things to say about my new novel, All the Reasons Why.

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