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 in Last Girls Club, Ghoulish Tales, and Sky Island Journal. Her debut novel Headcheese (2018) won an IPPY Award in Horror. Her sophomore novel Mother-Eating (2025) is forthcoming. She holds an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School, and is the proud recipient of writing residencies at McNeese State and Dear Butte. Austin, Texas is home.

More at www.jesshagemann.com.

Jess Hagemann, Author

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

“May I Touch Your Meat? Jan Svankmajer, Birth Trauma, and the Gesture Toward Touch,” Bright Lights Film Journal

“Things to Save,” Inquiring Mind

“Candice,” Devilfish Review

“Room for Saltwater,” The Oklahoma Review

“Overgrown!” Nerve Lantern

“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

Get in touch.

Jess is available for conferences, visiting writers’ weekends, and other speaking engagements.