February 2027
240 pp., 6 x 9
Paperback, $29.95
ISBN 978-1-60635-516-9
Just Some Girl
Growing Up in the Rural Midwest
Autobiography & Memoirs, Books, Forthcoming, Regional InterestJen Schwanke
Set against the backdrop of rural Ohio, Just Some Girl lyrically unpacks what it means to become a woman. While the author is initially nurtured by loving parents and strong sibling bonds, adolescence finds Schwanke lacking a sense of identity and feeling deeply insecure, like so many other teenage girls. To cope, she simultaneously reaches toward—and eventually fights against—disordered eating, alcohol abuse, painful relationships with men, and self-sabotage.
As Schwanke interrogates her experiences and choices, she makes connections between her life and the lives of other women: her mother, her sisters, a trusted professor, and the women she encounters in town, at church, or at work. This through-line captures the universal struggle—told from Schwanke’s unique perspective—to reject the deep roots of a patriarchal world.
In these essays, Schwanke proves herself to be an emerging literary voice, reminiscent of great essayists like Jo Ann Beard and Melissa Febos. She renders her life—difficulties and triumphs alike—with stark honesty, compassion, and curiosity. Just Some Girl is a powerful coming-of-age memoir about how place, family, and our own choices shape us into wise yet imperfect adults.
Jen Schwanke, EdD., is an educator and the author of five books on school leadership. A rural Ohio native, she has spent her career sharing her expertise on school culture through speaking, consulting, podcasting, and her popular education newsletter, Principal Problems. This is her debut memoir.
“Jen Schwanke writes with luminous, immersive prose that renders girlhood and womanhood with breathtaking clarity, transforming a single life into a mirror for so many others. With prose that is at once lush and unsparing, she captures the paradox of growing up: the beauty that sustains us and the quiet forces that begin, almost imperceptibly, to undo us. What emerges is an elegant and deeply felt commentary on the making of a woman—how she learns to shrink, to question herself, and, ultimately, to reclaim her voice, her body, and her power in the world.”
—Melissa Petro, cultural journalist and author of Shame on You: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification
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“In Just Some Girl, Jen Schwanke excavates why it is so difficult and confusing to exist as a young person in a female body. In rich prose that immersed me in the sensory world of the rural universe through the particular lens of the rural Midwest, we see our narrator attempt to become a person—spoiler, it is very hard to do so as a girl—only to find roadblocks in every direction, from her culture and family to the narratives inside her own head. Just Some Girl is an unflinching examination of how formative the narratives of patriarchy can be, and of how we all live with the harms society calls ‘everyday.’”
—Margo Steines, author of Brutalities: A Love Story