During “It’s Just a Conversation with Stewart Stewart”, bestselling author Jessica Brilliant Keener reflects on her early wild-child years in Newton, Massachusetts. Unabashed, she talks about her restless energy, curiosity, and unfiltered experiences.
Jessica graduated from high school at sixteen and received a full-tuition scholarship to Brown University based on her writing excellence. But she needed to have real life experiences – and did she ever! That’s what she talks about with Stewart …!
She did return to school … earned her B.A. in English with honors from Boston University, and returned to Brown to teach fiction workshops while also instructing writing courses there and at BU. Later, she taught ESL and freshman literature and composition at the University of Miami.
Not mentioned during her conversation with Stewart … Jessica has published more than one hundred feature articles in major outlets, including Boston Globe Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Coastal Living. She also won second place in Redbook magazine’s fiction contest for her story “Recovery.”
The piece, later included in the collection “Women In Bed” drew directly from her late-1970s battle with aplastic anemia — one of the earliest patients to receive an experimental bone marrow transplant. After two and a half months in a sterile hospital room and a full year of isolation (during which time she read the Classics), Jessica recovered completely. These experiences became the emotional core of her stories.
Jessica’s recently published novel (March 2026), “Evening Begins the Day” follows families in crisis, weaving in emotional betrayal (defined as an extramarital relationship but without sex), at-risk teens, and the quiet structure of the Jewish practice of Counting the Omer.
Jessica’s work consistently explores what she calls “the hidden wiring of relationships” — secrets, resilience, and the choices that define us.
After watching It’s Just a Conversation with Stewart Stewart and Jessica Brilliant Keener, I look forward to reading her books.
