Cris Mazza

Cris Mazza (born 1956) is an American novelist, short story and non-fiction writer.

A native of Southern California, Mazza earned her BA and MA at San Diego State University and her MFA in writing at Brooklyn College. She has published nine novels, four collections of short stories, and a collection of essays. She is widely anthologized as an example of post-feminist, formalist, or contemporary experimental fiction. Her work often deals with second and third-wave feminist concerns as well as frank sexuality.

Along with Jeffrey DeShell, Mazza coined the term "chick lit" for the edited anthology Chick Lit Postfeminist Fiction (1995) and the follow-up anthology Chick Lit 2: No Chick Vics (1996). While originally meant to be ironic, the term was co-opted to define a very different sort of work. In 2007, Gretchen Kalwinsky of Time Out Chicago called Mazza "an award-winning author who has waged a one-woman war against the chick-lit genre".

During an interview with Rain Taxi, Mazza termed her 2013 memoir, Something Wrong With Her a ‘meta-memoir.’ The memoir explores sexual dysfunction.

Mazza directs the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She won the PEN / Nelson Algren Award for her novel How to Leave a Country.

In addition, Mazza received an &NOW award in 2009 for her story “Trickle-Down Timeline,” published in The &NOW Awards: The Best Innovative Writing in 2009. She has also participated in the biennial &NOW festival.

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