Thanks for stopping by. I’m Samantha Dunn, an author, journalist, writing teacher and advocate for storytellers everywhere.
I wrote the novel Failing Paris, a finalist for the PEN West Fiction Award in 2000. I also published the bestselling memoir Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life (Henry Holt & Co.), a BookSense 76 pick, as w
My essays are anthologized in a number of places, including the short story anthology, Women on the Edge: Writing from Los Angeles, which I co-edited with Julianne Ortale. Other collections showcasing my work include the Seal Press releases Dancing at the Shame Prom: Sharing the Stories That Kept Us Small and Drinking Diaries: Women Serve Their Stories Straight Up. David Ulin’s anthology of L.A. writers, Another City, also features my work, as does Rob Spillman’s The Time of My Life.
As a journalist, my bylines have been widely published, from O the Oprah Magazine to Ms., Shape, the Los Angeles Times and the Miami Herald, not to mention InStyle, Glamour, SELF, Men’s Health and a variety of other consumer magazines. I have also written for the stage and have taken a few turns screenwriting as a member of the Writers Guild of America.
In a former life, I was a longtime writer-in-residence at the New York State Summer Writers Institute. Now I teach memoir at Chapman University, work with Pam Houston‘s nonprofit writing program Writing x Writers, and direct the Esalen Writers Camp, founded by Cheryl Strayed.
I’m currently the executive editor of Coast Magazine in Southern California. I live in Orange, California, with my husband, musician/politico Jimmy Camp, our son Benen, and a menagerie of horses, dogs, a goat, a cat