Julie Schumacher is an American novelist, essayist, short story writer, and academic. She is a Regents Professor of English at the University of Minnesota. Schumacher specializes in creative writing, contemporary fiction, and children's literature.
Education Schumacher received her bachelor's degree in Spanish and Latin American studies from Oberlin College in 1981. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree from Cornell University in 1986.
Career Following her MFA, Schumacher was an assistant professor at St. Olaf College and other academic institutions before joining the faculty at the University of Minnesota as an associate professor in 1996. She was promoted to professor in 2008, and became Regents Professor in 2021. She has won multiple teaching awards and served as director of the MFA Creative Writing Program at the University of Minnesota for thirteen years.
Works Schumacher has authored multiple novels, stories, and essays. Her first novel, The Body Is Water, was an ALA Notable Book of the Year and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. Her other books include An Explanation for Chaos and five books for young readers: The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls, The Chain Letter, Black Box, The Book of One Hundred Truths, and Grass Angel.
Schumacher is also the author of the national best-selling epistolary novel, Dear Committee Members, for which she was awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor. She was the first woman to win the Thurber Prize. An NPR review noted that the novel "deftly mixes comedy with social criticism and righteous outrage."
In 2018, Schumacher published The Shakespeare Requirement, which Kirkus Reviews called a "satire that oscillates between genuine compassion and scathing mockery with admirable dexterity." The New Yorker described the novel as a "sad-professor satire that burns with moral anger."
Awards and honors 1995 - PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel finalist, The Body Is Water 1995 - ALA Notable Book of the Year, The Body Is Water 2000 - Loft McKnight Award in Creative Prose 2007 - Minnesota Book Award in Young Adult Literature, The Book of One Hundred Truths 2008 - University of Minnesota College of Continuing Education Distinguished Educator Award 2010 - University of Minnesota Horace T. Morse-Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education 2011 - Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency 2015 - Thurber Prize for American Humor 2016 - University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts Scholar of the College 2019 - University of Minnesota Award for Outstanding Contributions to Graduate and Professional Education 2021 - University of Minnesota Regents Professorship
Bibliography Books The Body is Water (1995) An Explanation for Chaos (1998) Grass Angel (2004) The Chain Letter (2005) The Book of One Hundred Truths (2006) Black Box (2008) The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls (2012) Dear Committee Members (2014) Doodling for Academics: A Coloring and Activity Book (2017) The Shakespeare Requirement (2018) The English Experience (2023)
Selected articles “Was This Student Dangerous?”, The New York Times, June 18, 2014 “What My Mother Wanted Us to Pack”, The New York Times, November 8, 2015 “I Married a Pundit”, Minnesota Alumni, Fall 2018.
Personal life Schumacher is married to Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political scientist who is the Walter F. and Joan Mondale Chair for Political Studies and Director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. They met in an English class during their first year at Oberlin College.
They have two adult daughters, Emma and Isabella.
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