NEW Novel COMING 2025
preorders open
new short story
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 or is forthcoming in Beneath the Bluebonnets: Tales of Terror from Texas Women, Three Seasons of Winter, and Last Girls Club, among others. Her debut novel Headcheese (2018) won an IPPY Award in Horror. Her sophomore novel Mother-Eating (2025) joins Marie Antoinette and cults. Jess received her MFA from the Jack Kerouac School, and has been awarded a teaching fellowship at McNeese State University as well as a writing residency at Dear Butte. She lives in Austin.
More at www.jesshagemann.com.
other publications
2026
“The Last Taboo,” Beneath the Bluebonnets: Tales of Terror from Texas Women (forthcoming)
2025
excerpt from Sweet Cheeks, Three Seasons of Winter Vol. 2 (forthcoming)
2024
“Woman Among Women,” Last Girls Club
“A Certain Level of Discernment,” Ghoulish Tales
2023
“Something Like Grief,” Sky Island Journal
2022
“House of Many Rooms,” Castle of Horror: Young Adult
2021
2020
“Mistook in Manor,” Southwest Review
“The Purple,” HorrorGirl Problems
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
2024
Jess on the Ghoulish Books blog
Jess reads at Smushed Blueberries
Jess gets interviewed on Curious Blend
Jess gets interviewed on The Purpose-Driven Entrepreneur
2022
Jess at the virtual launch for Castle of Horror: YA (28:15)
Review of Into the Forest by Publishers Weekly
Encyclopocalypse Publications acquires Headcheese
2021
Jess at the virtual launch for Castle of Horror: Femme Fatales
2020
Jess gets interviewed on HorrorGirl Problems
Review of Headcheese by The Dust Lounge
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.