CURRENT WRITING PROJECTS
LOST DOGS
When a young woman goes missing from a dive bar in 1990s Portland, Maine, former LAPD vice cop Detective Bonnie Cardelli butts heads with her arrogant boss, pursuing the case against his explicit orders. As she does, she stumbles on a chain of corruption in this sleepy, seaside city that puts her career and the lives of key witnesses at risk.
An excerpt of LOST DOGS will appear in the fall/winter 2024 issue of Hypertext Magazine; previous excerpts were published as a series in Beer & Weed Magazine.
BRASS
BRASS is a collection of stories about growing up as a military brat. Using the perspective of one rebellious daughter as a frame, these stories explore the lives of the men, women, and children who served the United States Navy during the Cold War. BRASS documents the experience of those who—as military brat author Pat Conroy described it—“Know the raw artlessness of being an outsider.”
Stories from BRASS are featured in The Cincinnati Review, Al Pie de la Letra, Fanzine, CutBank, and Collateral. In 2017, Tanya won second prize in Zoetrope: All Story’s Short Fiction Contest for her story “Marine Life of the B.I.O.T.”
Read excerpts from BRASS
Collateral CutBank Fanzine Cincinnati Review Al Pie de la Letra
TWO FOR THE ROAD: ADVENTURES IN MAINE
In TWO FOR THE ROAD: ADVENTURES IN MAINE, photographer Heidi Killion and essayist Tanya Whiton capture a Vacationland you won’t find in guide books. Trekking from the annual Pig Scramble at the Union Fair to a drag strip in Oxford—and everywhere in between—our narrators go in search of the “real Maine.”
On the way, they document the transformation of Maine’s traditional industries and small towns through the lens of personal change. The result? A moving and compassionate portrait of both a friendship and a rapidly changing rural state.
“Whiton’s snappy prose and Killion’s enigmatic photographs take you to a Maine you won’t find in brochures…and deliver these places with both wit and affection.”
—Elizabeth Peavey
OTHER PUBLICATIONS & AWARDS
Tanya’s stories and essays have also been published in BREAKING BREAD: ESSAYS FROM NEW ENGLAND ON FOOD, HUNGER, & FAMILY, Solstice: a Magazine of Diverse Voices, North Dakota Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, Northwest Review, Crazyhorse, and in the anthology The Way Life Should Be: A Collection of Stories by Contemporary Maine Writers.
She is a two-time recipient of the Martin Dibner Memorial Fellowship for Maine writers. And for ten years, she worked a freelance writer for both Casco Bay Weekly and The Portland Phoenix, winning New England Press Association Awards for both her feature and sports writing.